


Fester

by whasupwhereitis



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-03-06 16:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13415049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whasupwhereitis/pseuds/whasupwhereitis
Summary: Regina lets the wounds on her arm fester. She leaves them be, night after night, staring at them, dark eyes empty, breath easy, and she could be sleeping, if she weren't in so much pain. But henry is gone, her baby, and the pain will never go away. Infection is no laughing matter, and when Roland witnesses her fall to her fever, it's his father he runs too





	1. The New Old World

Regina lets the wounds on her arm fester.

 

In daylight the wounds are covered with black silk, lace, or whatever else remains untouched in her wardrobe after so long away. The rich fabrics feel foreign against her skin now, but they make an excellent shield against prying and curious eyes.

 

Not that there are many prying and curious eyes at all to guard from, but there is at least Snow. Pure Snow White, who is still so infuriatingly good after everything she has lost, who still finds it within herself to smile, to laugh…

 

Regina stares at the deep furrows maring her arm in the night. She should be sleeping but she can't. She leaves the wounds open to air in the night and keeps them for a secret for her eyes and hers alone. The long gashes have no hope of closing without stitches. They are framed in angry pussing red. She thinks she deserves the pain.

 

Henry, her sweet child, is gone, and she suppose she deserves that pain as well.

 

It is not quite as dramatic as stealing away her own heart or pricking her finger with a cursed sleep, but somewhere in her mind she knows these wounds are more final. Infections are no laughing matter, especially here, where a medicine man and some herbs is your only protection from death.

 

Regina doesn't want to die. Henry wouldn't want that. Yet she still she lies in her bed at night and watches her arm grow into a  gruesome sight.

 

She does not cry.

\-------------------------

Regina is surveying a map in conference with Snow and her ragtag council when she faints for the first time. It comes on rather suddenly. The voices in the room become a distant sound as she blinks rapidly. She starts swaying gently from side to side as spots of color light up her vision. She feels a hand clasping just above her elbow and she hears Snow's voice is in her ear before the sound of blood is rushing through her head becomes impossible to ignore. Regina stares with blank eyes at the concern Snow wears so beautifully. Then it’s dark.

 

Even after she regains consciousness she has to struggle for a few moments before she can open her eyes. She has sprawled inelegantly onto the cold stone floor. Snow has followed her down and is kneeling at her side. Charming, his brow creased as if he is confused, hovers over his wife's shoulder.

 

They watch, Grumpy and three of his brothers, Granny and Red, Snow and Charming, others too, as Regina struggles to sit up. And it is a struggle. Just to sit up leaves Regina out of breath and dizzy. Snow has her hands out as if to offer help but seems to think better of it; Snow shuffles away on her knees when Regina reaches for the table edge.

 

Regina knows what she must look like, sweaty and pale and pissed off, it's no wonder no one helps her. No wonder at all.

 

"Regina, are you alright?" Snow asks. From her tone it's obvious the idiot girl has already figured out the answer.

 

"Fine," Regina answers. Her voice shakes, her voice sounds weak even to her own ears.

 

Regina stiffens her jaw and attempts to stand. Everyone takes an immediate step back as Regina pulls at the table edge; they watch as Regina stumbles over herself twice before she has the strength in her legs to hold herself up. Her legs tremble.

 

She takes in one deep breath and raises her hand from the table. There’s sweat dotting at her hairline and she already knows she is going to faint again. But not here, please not here. Regina stumbles her way out the open door of the chamber.

 

“Regina, wait-” Snow says as she climbs up and chases after.

 

Regina keeps walking and does not listen as she passes through the doorway.

 

Only one corridor away and she is forced to hold herself up against the walls. It’s slow progress towards her bed chambers. The halls are almost empty, almost, she passes people by, but she has to work so hard to even stay conscious that what they must think, that they think her  _ weak _ , is pushed violently to the back of her thoughts.

 

She's staggering like a dizzy drunk and her breath comes quick and sharp. The wall seems frighteningly far away even though her hand rests on it still.

 

The colorful bright spots creep back in from the edge of her vision.

 

A sharp tug on her skirt has her turning her head, but her world is already black. She hears the voice of a child, but the buzzing in her ear blocks whatever question was asked. 

 

Her eyes roll back into her head and Regina falls to her knees. She has the half formed thought that this must be so frightening for a child before she has no thoughts at all.

\-------------------------  
  


Regina wakes in her own bed, groggy and sluggish, she curls to lay on her side. She pulls her knees in towards her chest as sense returns. She’s in her nightgown. She’s covered in sweat and feels disgusting.

 

It takes a long while for her to be able to catalogue her own body. A gasp escapes her mouth when she feels the pain. Her whole arm is on fire. It aches so badly. It hurts more then when her sister’s freakish monkey had first clawed it open. From the elbow down to the base of her thumb her arm is wrapped in fresh white linen. Her brow furrows, confusion and heaviness courses through her body.

 

It feels as if something has been stolen from her.

 

Dear Snow White has stolen another ending, this one not so happy, but an ending all the same.

 

Is that what she craved? It isn't what Henry would have wanted.

 

The groan of a chair comes from the corner and as fast as her tired, abused body will allow Regina swishes her eyes to see the thief striding towards her. His clothes are stained bloody with splotches all over and Regina has the vague remembrance of being held down, of screaming, of crying, as her wounds were ripped open, as corruption spilled out and out and out, until finally a medicine man had put some herbs down and had sewn ugly stitches into her skin and wrapped it all up. The memory flows over her almost too fast for her to follow. She closes her eyes and tries to breath through sudden nausea.

 

But Regina can't remember Snow being there, and Regina is sure Snow would have been if she had known. She would have been their with a disappointed frown and those sweet doe eyes and she probably would have cried. Snow must not know and for that Regina is grateful. Disappointment from that little girl would be to bitter a pill to swallow at the moment.

 

"You scared my son," the thief says by way of greeting. When Regina finds the strength to open her eyes she finds him merely a foot fall from her bed. His eyes are hard and his shoulders tense. She doesn't have the strength to speak. She’s tired. She’s hurt. She can’t think.

 

His stance does not waver. How long will he wait for an apology that's not on its way, she wonders.

 

A shiver racks her frame and her knees draw closer to her chest without conscious thought. It’s a fetal position and her eyes slip closed once, twice, and she can't will them open again.

 

She hears a sound from him, some worried sound, and then the thud of boots fall towards her before a warmth is draped around her shoulders. She sleeps.

  
  


Weak and dreary sunlight filter through her dark curtains the next morning.

 

She does not leave her bed chambers.


	2. Chapter 2

Robin turns his head as his ears catch the sound of his boy’s cries before the boy has even rounded the corner. Roland is crying a terrible heaving cry; his face is a little tiny mask of horror as he runs as fast as his short legs can carry him. He skids when he rounds the corner and nearly smacks into the wall before he orients himself.

Robin gasps and runs down the hall to scoop Roland up into his embrace. The little boy plants his face against Robin’s shoulder, which immediately is soaked from the fat tears on Roland’s fat little cheeks. Roland is sobbing and gulping down hiccuping breaths as he tries to speak and fails. “It’s alright, Roland. Papa’s here,” Robin sooths. 

The pair lower to the ground. Robin is so, so gentle as he places Roland on his feet and feels along the boy’s body searching for an injury. There is no injury though. “Roland, what is it, my boy? Shhh, shhh. Speak to me, it’s alright.” 

It’s impossible to understand the child through his hysteria. Roland wipes at his face and tries to calm down but he is too upset. There’s too much emotion in him for such a little boy it seems. Robin glances at Little John crouches as the man crouches beside him.

“Come on, lad, be a man,” John chastises. Robin glares at him as he gathers Roland’s hands together with both of his own, but his eyes are gentle when he looks back to his boy.

“Roland, take a deep breath. Try to calm down. Tell me what happened? Did someone hurt you?”

Roland’s curls fly as he shakes his head. He takes in a deep breath and lets loose a string of words that Robin cannot make out mostly, but two words are clear. 'Queen' and 'dead' Robin thinks he hears and at that a panic grips his heart. There is no denying the Queen is their strongest protector against another witch and to fight without her, to survive, is hard to imagine.

"Where? Roland, show us, please," Robin says. He notices Little John throwing him a curious look, but there is no time to question.

Roland wipes at his cheeks with the cuff of his shirt and nods. He turns on his heel and takes off with Robin and John right behind him. It takes four minutes of sprinting through dark stone hallways before the two men and still sobbing little boy stop. At the end of the hall, laying still in a slant of sunlight, is the Queen. She is a puddle of black silk and black hair. One pale hand, too pale for a woman of her complexion, lies grotesque in its stillness.

A ragged breath rips itself from Robin's mouth as unwanted images of a fallen Marian flash through his mind. Roland grabs his hand. The emotions and the memories that run through him surprise him. He sees Marian’s dark hair crusted with blood and a limp hand so much like the one before him now. She had called him love and taken a stuttering breath and then it was silence from her forever. Robin shakes his head violently and remembers that Marian is far away and that it had all happened long ago. This is the Queen before him. It is not Marian.

Little John is already at the Queens side. He is not as gentle as he could be as he turns the fallen woman over onto her back. A frown pulls his heavy brow down. "She lives. Roland, she's lives, shhhh, lad, she's alright."

Roland nods his little head, but he cries just as adamantly as before. His dark eyes filled with tears as he studies the way Little John feels the Queen's pulse at her neck. The boy drops his father's hand and scrubs at his tear stained face and tries to look brave.

In one great jerk Robin steps forwards and kneels beside her.

There is an unhealthy tinge to her skin and sweat beads at her brow. Labored breath coming from her parted lips. Her eyes are half open, with only the whites to be seen. Robin reaches out a hand and cups one cheek; she is hot to the touch.

"John, go for a healer," Robin instructs as he bundles her up to lift. John stands, but he lingers.

"What if they won't come?" John asks. Which is a perfectly reasonable question really, but anger hot and fierce shows on Robin's face.

John nods. "I'll… get one, Robin."

Robin rises with her in his grasp. Her arms dangle and her dark hair tumbles down. All that black silk shines and folds in the misty day light streaming through high drafty windows. She's lighter then he'd expected. She's not tall for a woman and obviously slim, but it surprises Robin how easy and how well she fits in his arms. He readjusts his grip and doesn't notice the how tightly he grasps her.

"Bring them to her chambers, John," he decides. As he begins to walk Roland takes one of her dangling hands into his own.

When they arrive to her chambers Robin lays her down gently on top of her bed covers and steps back. The boy climbs onto the bed beside her. “Roland, no,” Robin says, but the boy does not listen.

Roland no longer cries, but his wide eyed and fear filled stare is an expression Robin had hoped never to see him wear. Robin reaches out and ruffles the boy's hair easily, but has no words of comfort. He does not lie to Roland. He never will.

"She's all wet," Roland says quietly in that large bed. His hands come away from her arm red.

Robin leans forward and knows the sight of blood easily. "Where?" he asks, with a forced calm in his voice.

"Right here," the boy answers and points at her forearm. Robin draws a dagger from his waist and cuts the sleeve at the cuff. He takes just a moment to breathe as he puts the knife back on his belt. The rest of the sleeve rips easily in his hands. Robin chokes a little at the mangled and infection ridden sight before him when that black silk leaves her bare.

Roland gasps and his little hands draw towards his mouth, one of those hands still red with the Queens blood. Robin snatches towards that hand quickly and he grabs Roland around the waist and lifts him from the bed. This is not something the little boy need be exposed to. "We'll wash your hands, my boy," he says and carries the boy out.

\-------------------------

The healer is a somber man and Robin appreciates the care in his touch as he examines the Queen.

Little John had taken Roland away, away from blood and sickness and the woman that might die. Roland had sniffled quietly. Haunted eyes in a face so young was a brutal thing to see.

Robin stays with her. He is wary of leaving her alone with even a healer. She is their most powerful asset, but too many in this castle don't’ see reason. She was their enemy, but not anymore.

"Will she live?" Robin asks. His voice sounds more desperate than he’d intended. His thoughts are with Marian. She is dead. He has had enough of death. He does not want another woman to die when it was within his power to save her. But the Queen is not a woman, she is a weapon, she is an asset he thinks. He glances down at her and almost immediately those thoughts are challenged. She looks all too human now.

The healer glances at him and grasps his shoulder, but speaks the truth. He says, "Perhaps, perhaps not."

Long hours later and Robin has not slept. He remains in her bedchamber. She looks too vulnerable now. He will not leave her just to hear she’d been attacked in the night. He had found himself staring at her as the sun dipped low in the sky and bathed her in orange light. He had had the fleeting thought that she was beautiful and had promptly turned his chair away so as to better guard the door.

The Queen begins to stir on her bed and Robin turns in his chair to glance at her. It’s moonlight on her now. She is still beautiful.

She turns on her side and pushes at the blankets thrown over her. The nightgown the healer had changed her into after treating her wounds, but before breaking her fever, riding up on her legs as she curls them up. Wild and sweat soaked strands of hair cover her blinking eyes. Robin can see when those eyes focus on her bandaged arm.

She frowns with anger in the line of her mouth and Robin is deeply unsettled by the expression.

The chair groans as he stands and his legs stretch painfully after being still so long. He walks towards her, but he stops several steps from her bed. When her tired gaze locks onto him he tenses. The worry he'd felt evaporates into sudden anger. Anger at her and at what she'd let happen, but most of all for almost dying in front of his son.

"You scared my son," he grits out; Roland's tear streaked face and broken cries prominent in his mind.

Her expression does not change. Her heavy lids drooped half open with her head resting against the pillow and all that messy hair mussed all around her face. She looks too pale. She looks tired. Robin reminds himself that she is still sick. His anger fizzles out as quickly as it had arrived as she shivers, eyes closing, legs balling up and then she is still, sleeping.

He walks towards her, sighing, worry that he can't comprehend etched to his brow as he throws her blanket about her shoulders.

She’s sleeping now, Robin is sure, not unconscious. She’s not so defenseless now and Robin is exhausted. He leaves her. Robin closes the doors softly behind him. He hopes Roland is already asleep by now.

\-------------------------

She does not show for the morning meal the next day.

Roland asks after her as his little head turns all about as if to spy her.

Nor does she show for the midday meal.

Robin promises Roland that she is surely fine. The boy's frown is hard to budge.

And when dinner comes and goes with not even a hint of the dark haired, dark eyed, dark clad woman, Robin finds himself worried.

\-------------------------

"You have heavy feet for a thief."

A grin tips the corner of his lips up. "I am not thieving at the moment and so my feet can be as heavy as I please."

She is seated, illuminated by the moon, upon a stiff backed chair near the balcony. The curtains are still in the breezeless air. She is still in the nightgown he’d last seen her in. "Why are you here?" she asks him. She turns her head away from where he thought himself hidden in a dark corner. She sounds tired.

Robin walks forward into the light. His boots thumping across the stone. "I am still waiting for your thanks," he says, and it is true, but that also he had to see for himself that she was awake and alive, that he keeps to himself.

A silent snort twists up her mouth as he cautiously takes a step closer. Her hair is loose and unbrushed. Dark waves left down her back. He's never seen it look more beautiful. The twists and high elegant styles she favors are intimidating, lovely but not touchable. Here, like this, he imagines running his hands through her hair for the first time.

"I am grateful you aided me, thief," she says, but sounds almost spiteful. "Now leave."

He stops a foot from her and studies the bandage over her injuries. They are stained from where the wounds have wept. They need to be changed. She left them untreated for so long and he had not thought of what that meant before. "Did you wish to die?" he asks.

"Of course not," she snaps. Her eyes are sharp as she twists to look at him and she does look appalled, but there is guilt there too on her brow. Does he know her well enough to know her moods so well? But he sees it there, plainly before him, guilt.

And they both remember the sleeping curse she'd made.

He stares down at her without a word to say and after a moment she turns away from him. "You received what you came here for, leave me be," she orders.

Robin shakes his head and goes to fetch the other chair in the room. He drags it, its legs squealing against the floor, to plop it besides hers. He sits in it heavily and crosses his arms and smiles at the glare she levels him with. "Perhaps I want to enjoy your company a bit longer," he says.

"Perhaps I want to throw you over the balcony," she responds.

He reaches towards his satchel with a grin as he brings forth a measure of bread and cheese that he'd snagged from the kitchens. He holds it out between them as she flickers her gaze down to the offerings. "You were not at meal time," he says, and does not mention that he'd noted her absence all day and that worry had gnawed at his belly. "Even Royals must eat, surely."

She reaches slowly for the bread hesitantly, as if she expects him to tear it away from her grasp.

She is too thin, or is this her without her armor? Without her yards of silk and velvet? Her bones look sharp against her skin, she still looks ill.

Sorrow is wasting her away.

When she takes a bite of bread he smiles.

He lets her eat. He looks out past her balcony to the star filled sky.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. 

“When you’re done we’ll change your bandage,” Robin says just as quietly.

She clears her throat, which Robin takes as a prompt to look at her once more. 

“I didn't mean to frighten your son,” she tells him. Those dark eyes of hers are liquid, and he could drown.

“But you did.” Accusation is missing in his tone, but it is the truth.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

\-------------------------

Robin is sitting with Roland in his lap. The boy is cranky and irritable and terribly unhappy with the knowledge that his Papa got to visit the Queen, after bedtime no less, and Roland didn't. Robin is trying to cajole the boy into eating some of the greens on his plate when the sound around the table sputters out. He notices the silence immediately. Robin's eyes dart away from the fork in his hand to look at Little John across the table. The large man has his eyes directed at something just above Robin's shoulder, and when Robin turns to see what it is, he sees not a something, but a someone.

The Queen stands behind him all draped in black with a simple braid over one shoulder. Her spine is straight and her chin held high; she's making a very good impression of someone hale and healthy, but there are bags under her eyes, and Robin wonders if she had needed to change her bandages again this morning. He would have helped her.

Roland starts wiggling on his father's lap to be let down, but Robin is reluctant to let him go. The boy won't take no for an answer, and when his feet reach the ground he takes one hesitant step towards the woman he'd last seen feverish and bloody on a bed too large. The Queen's eyes dart from Roland and back up to Robin. Her head inclines questioningly, her eyes seeking permission to speak to the boy. Robin nods. When she begins to move the Merry Men at the table tense and their hands inch towards weapons, but Robin doesn't even have time to motion a cease before they all pause on their own. Their surprise is laughably transparent as she sweeps gracefully to her knees before the child. Her skirts, big and unwieldy, puff out and she straightens them down with practiced ease. She smiles when Roland titters out a giggle.

"Hello, Roland," she says pleasantly. Her smile is not quite a smile; she wears an almost smile on her face and the boy can't tell the difference. She speaks quietly. The table of men strain to hear her, and of course she must notice their intent, but pays no mind.

Roland’s eyes brighten and he smiles wide as as he drops into an exaggerated bow. When he rises back up he looks very proud. "Majesty," he says. The word not quite right sounding from his little mouth.

Her smile grows warmer. "Call me Regina," she instructs the child. The name latches in Robin's mind. He'd known her name, of course, but now she is Regina and not the Queen. Something in him shifts, she is Regina.

Roland shakes his curly head, he already knew her name as well, and had named the flying monkey toy she'd given him after her. "You're the Queen," Roland says. He sounds thoroughly confused, because the little boy knows enough of titles and Royalty to know that you don't call a Queen by her name.

A sadness enters her eyes and her smile flickers. Leaning forward she mock whispers, "You are my hero, though, and so you simply must call me Regina.” She says it like she's sharing a secret and her smile becomes as true as Robin thinks it can be.

His eyes grow wide as saucers. "Your hero?" he questions. His gaze spins to Robin for a moment before looking back at her. Robin's mouth parts only slightly as he watches his child and the woman on her knees. The warmth of her smile kindles something deep in Robin, embers being blown back into life.

"Of course, Roland," she says as she nods. "You saved me."

Robin wishes she would look at him, but she does not. The feeling of her in his grasp, limp and feverish, comes to him as a phantom weight in his arms, and he wishes she would look at him.

Roland looks down and kicks his feet a little. He swings his shoulders as a little tiny pout appears on his adorable face. He shakes his head sheepishly. "I was scared," he whispers. "I…" dark eyes look up at her, before quickly looking away, "cried like a baby," he finishes, like it's particularly shameful.

Her hand comes up, but stops before reaching the boy, her eyes swish fast over the men now suddenly tense behind Roland. Robin turns partly towards them, angry frown marring his features, and they relax once more with confused expressions on their faces as they study Robin, then the Queen. The damage seems to be done though; her hand is retreating back towards her lap.

But Roland steps closer to her and reaches for that hand with both of his. He hugs it against his chest.

Her eyes grow wide and wet very suddenly as she stars at her hand being held so ardently against the boy's chest. She shakes her head a little. "You were a very brave boy, Roland," she says. The sadness is back in those dark eyes and even the almost smile gone.

Roland shakes his head and looks as if to speak, but she stops him. Her other hand comes to his face and she cradles his cheek. "You were very, very brave. You can only ever be brave when you're scared, Roland."

Roland melts into her touch. He is a friendly boy, but even by his standards he's never taken to a stranger so well. "Papa says that too," he says. His dimples are on full display as he smiles at her.

It takes Robin's breath away; the pair of them takes his breath away.

"Your Papa must be very wise," she says, "like me," she adds on, with a little grin on her lips.

She lets her hands drop away from the boy gently and strokes her thumb across his cheek softly before she rises.

"Thank you, Ser Roland," she says. She dips down into a deep curtsy, the kind of which no Queen would ever have reason to do in her own kingdom, as hands spread the fabric of her skirt. She looks a benevolent Queen.

Roland laughs a sweet and high laugh and it rings through the chamber. It is a joyous sound as he bends at the waist in an even more flamboyant bow then before.

\-------------------------

The Merry Men pester Robin endlessly after that.

Gossips, all of them, he grumbles and breathes not a word of her injury, or her resulting illness, to them, just as he has kept her sorrow to himself.

But where he feels the need to respect the Queens privacy, Little John apparently does not, and it is known throughout the castle before lunch that the Queen had need of a healer because of untreated wounds and that Robin had been the one to rush to her aid.

There are whispers after that, sidelong glances from people Robin has never met, confused expressions abound.

Before dinner he and John are approached by one of Snow White's dwarves and are summoned to a council meeting. When they enter the room it is charged dangerously with tension.

"What happened?" Robin asks with a frown deep in his features as he approaches the table around which everyone stands.

When he sees what is on the table…the horror makes him gape.

A severed head sits there swaddled in bloody rags. The eyes are open. Not just open, but...alive. The pupils frantically swish to and fro in the sockets and the mouth twists in a silent scream.

"We sent a scout," David says. He lays a hand on Snow Whites shaking shoulder. "We sent him to check the perimeters of the kingdom."

"And he," Robin falters. He swallows. “He was sent back like this?"

"A flying monkey threw him through the kitchen windows," an old woman says. An old woman from Storybrooke who Robin has not yet quite met. She stares at the head with a wild rage to her. Robin eyes her for a moment before he lets his eyes search the room.

Regina is not here.

"Where is the Queen?" he asks. Eyes snap towards him, expressions so diverse he can hardly comprehend them all suddenly pointed his way. "This is magic," he says and gestures towards the animated head, "magic, of which I believe she is an expert."

"Yes," a voice, her voice, calls from the chamber door, "she is."

Robin turns to watch her enter the room. The room is silent now, so silent her soft footfalls seem loud. People back away as she passes. Her expression is a blank mask as she reaches the table and studies the silently screaming face.

"Regina," Snow says, and the name sounds caring, the way she says it, "we knew you were hurt so-"

"Spare me," Regina says, but it's not cutting, it's tired, still so tired. Is she feeling better, he wants to know, are her stitches holding, but he can't ask now. She bends down with her hands on the hard wooden table and reaches out towards the bundle. She spins it until she's seen the head from all angles.

David's lip has turned up in disgust. "Do you know what Dark magic this is?"

Regina summons a chair from behind her. It scrapes against the floor until it gently taps the back of her knees and she sinks down into it. "Thaemtonum," she says softly, very softly, as she clasps her hands together in front of her mouth.

"What is that?" Snow asks with her sweet face pinched in worry.

"It's-" Regina shakes her head and those dark eyes flick up to the severed head and away very quickly. She winces. “It’s a very complicated spell." She swallows firmly and finally turns her face away. "It tethers the soul."

"So he’s still alive." David's face scrunches in confusion.

"No," Regina says firmly. "No, he is certainly not alive."

Her shoulders are shaking; her hands hold each other with white knuckles. Her face is pinched like something loud is screaming at her. "Can you hear him?" Robin whispers. He edges closer to her. He leans down towards her.

Regina doesn't answer for a moment. All eyes are on her now. Do they see what Robin sees? A woman shaking and so obviously unwell, but sitting strong.

"Yes," she answers, "I can hear him."

"What is he saying?" Snow asks.

"He is somewhere dark," Regina says. Her voice is hollow, no inflection as she breathes shallowly, as if she is actively trying not to be sick. “He can’t see He’s screaming for help." The room is still. “It’s cold and wet. He feels creatures all around him, slimy and cruel all around him. Panic is on him. He screams for his brothers, Tek and William, he doesn't know why they don't come, he's begging th-"

It looks very much like she will continue, but Robin can see the toll this takes on her. He reaches out towards her clasped hands and enfolds them both with one of his own. "Stop," he urges softly and she does.

Her hands are cold in his grasp. She doesn't move away from his touch.

"Can you set him free?" Snow asks. Tears tracks fall down her cheeks. Her gaze lingers on Robin's hold of Regina's hands, but he does not feel the need to pull away.

"No," Regina says. The word ripped from her throat as if the admission pains her.

"Why not?" a dwarf barks and doesn't seem bothered in the least at Robin's glare in return.

"It isn't that I won't, dwarf," she spits at him, voice vicious. "It's that I can't," she admits. She is suddenly blinking and suddenly tearing her hands from Robin's grasp. She stands so quickly that her chair nearly knocks over.

Without another word she is out the doors.

And Robin follows.


	3. Chapter 3

Regina hesitates at the doorway. She takes a moment to watch the father and son sit together. The look so at ease. The little boy squeals happily as the thief picks him up and puts him on his lap. His smile turns into a pout as he shakes his head and refuses the green bean offered to him. Regina takes a deep, controlled breath to steady nerves she'll never admit needed calming, and walks towards the table.

The men are eating, laughing, and enjoying each other’s presence; enjoying their friendship. The notice her one by one and as they do the laughter slowly dies. A man down the table drops his fork with a clatter with his mouth unattractively open as she sweeps to a stop behind Robin. His attention is on his child, but words are not needed. It takes only a moment for him to spin in his seat and look at her.

His eyes are surprised. Regina decidedly ignores how they soften once he sees and recognizes her. His gaze moves down to her arm before he looks back up to her face. She doesn't need his pity. She straightens her spine and fights the urge to put her wounded arm, covered in a sleeve, out of his view.

But he is not the reason she has approached, the boy is her reason.

Memories from behind the haze of her fever speak of a crying boy, scared and covered in snot, with panic in his brown eyes. Guilt, raw and unwanted, heaves in her gut. She wishes the boy had not been there, but he was, and she knows it was not something he'd needed to see.

Roland starts wriggling and squirming in his father's lap to be put down, but the man holds his child though. Robin holds his son tight and looks up at Regina with unease in his eyes. The shot of hurt that races through her is unexpected. She should have expected it though. Who would trust their child with the Evil Queen?

The boy is determined though and eventually struggles free. He takes a little footfall towards Regina with eyes wide.

Regina throws a questioning glance at the thief, her head tilted, until he nods. There is uncertainty on his expression. He doesn't look frightened, but wary. The men behind him are little easier to read. They are untrusting, hard and tense, and all at once Regina is glad this boy has protection, and devastated that she's become the thing children are protected from. It's not a new revelation, she's been a monster for a long time, but she let herself forget. Let herself be a woman, a Mayor, and tried to be a Mother, but that was in a different world.

The boy is tiny, just a little boy, and Regina decides immediately that what she has to say, she must say to his face. Just as she had always tried to do with Henry, so too will she do with this boy. She falls to her knees for the child, to look at him eye to eye, this boy not her own, and smiles at him.

"Hello, Roland," she says with the smile on her face is as genuine as she can make it.

The boy lights up, smiles all his baby teeth on display, any lingering uncertainty gone in an instant as he sweeps into a bow so deep he's in danger of tipping over. Regina would think she was being mocked if it was anyone else, but he pops up proud as a peacock, dimples deep in his cheeks. "Majesty," he says, that little voice warming Regina's heart.

"Call me Regina," she says.

But he shakes his head, and Regina's smile falters. "You're the Queen," he tells her.

Regina, in an instant, feels old pain in her heart. Yes, she is the Queen, for all that it has done for her. A King had wedded her and bedded her, but had never loved her, and now she will forever and always a Queen, and an Evil one besides. This child will not know her as a Queen, she decides and lets the old pain slither into the back of her mind once more. She leans forward. "You are my hero, though," she says with earnest eyes, "and so you simply must call me Regina."

"Your hero?" he breathes. Awe filled eyes spin to his father before returning to her.  
She feels it then, the weight of the thief's gaze, heavier than that of the other men, and she studiously refuses to look at him.

"Of course, Roland," she reassures, "You saved me," and she will never let this child know how much she hadn't wanted to be saved.

Roland looks suddenly shy, fumbling with his feet and looking down and away from her. "I was scared," he admits, and Regina feels a flare of guilt deep in her belly. "I cried like a baby," he whispers, shame written on his face.

The want to comfort him is so strong and fierce in that instant that Regina forgets herself. She reaches for his cheek; it takes not even a second for her to realize her lapse in judgment. The men at the boy's back stiffen, hands jumping towards daggers at their waists and bows beside them. She stills her hand, but feels confusion deep when the men relax once more. But Regina will not mistake that as permission and pulls back her hand.

The boy follows after it, grasps it tightly, little fingers slightly sticky, he draws her hand towards his chest, and hugs it against himself like it were a beloved thing. Regina can't hide her wonder, this silly, silly boy, she thinks, if he knew how many chests she has invaded, how many hearts she has taken, lives stolen, would he be so quick to crave her touch? "You were a very brave boy," she says. He shakes his head and once more, without thought, she reaches for his cheek, it is soft and round, he is still such a little boy. "Very, very brave, you can only ever be brave when you're scared, Roland."

Roland presses against her hand, he is so achingly adorable. "Papa says that too," Roland giggles.

Regina feels those eyes on her again, blue eyes heavy and wanting. She will not look at him. "Your Papa must be very wise, like me," she says with a grin. The weight of those eyes is too much all at once, her audience of men seem stifling, and she must leave now, retreat from them and this boy that is not her child, this child who all at once buoys her and devastates her.  
Her hand lingers against his cheek as she rises, gracefully, to her feet.

She drops into a deep curtsy, the kind she hasn't had need of since she had Leopold murdered in his bed. "Thank you, Ser Roland," she says.

He laughs madly and nose dives into another bow.

Regina retreats as fast as she can without looking like she is running.

______________________________________________________________________________

Air is harsh in and out through her nose as she flings the doors shut after her with nothing but a violent wave of her hand. Grief, a wave crashing over her, the tide pulling her under, grief that comes and goes like the push and pull of the ocean, it fills her, she submerges under it, grief, raw and terrible grief. She's drowning.

A child's smiling and laughing face, pulling her under.

It's the wrong child, her heart whispers brokenly, a quivering hand covers her mouth.

She wants to weep, but the tears will not come, there is only coldness, seeping and numbing, climbing up her frame. The icy grasp of the tide, grief, it leaves her gasping as she falls to the ground against the doors to her chamber.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Hours later she awakens from her stupor and feels silly and undignified, but her thoughts are strangely hollow, empty, and useless. 

An awful sound fills the room. It fills her head. Her hands fly over her ears, she is shocked beyond sense as screaming, awful screaming, comes from the very walls of the castle all around her. It reverberates in the stone.

She flings herself off the bed, but finds no relief from the sound further in the room.

A man is screaming, from all around, she can hear him in the walls, in the floor, from the very air, as if he is right next to her. Regina crouches on her knees with hands still over her ears and breathes as deeply and calmly as she can, in then out, in then out, she pulls her magic about herself, a shroud to shield her, but it only dampens it, it is enough though.

It is Dark magic, she knows, can feel, she is no stranger to it, no stranger to the dark and the twisted, but this is worse than any she casted.

Another deep breath before she straightens herself, stands, and walks with even, regal strides out of her chamber, opening the doors with hands that tremble. She follows the magic, the closer she gets, the louder the screams.

First it is towards the kitchens that she's drawn, but then it is the Council chambers she is pulled towards, she hesitates, stops, and with a shake of her dark hair, she continues.

They left the door open to the hall, Snow, you silly girl, Regina thinks, doors are made for a reason.

"-through the windows," and that is the old wolf, Granny who sounds ready to kill.

"Where is the Queen?"

His voice makes Regina stop once more. Her hands clench the rumpled fabric of her skirt into fistfuls, of course he is there, as he has somehow already become some great ally to Snow and Charming. "This is magic," he says, and she swallows, her face a perfect mask of no emotion and walks into the room. "Magic, of which I believe she is an expert."

There was a time such a perfectly timed entrance would have brought a smile to her lips, but that time is past. "Yes," Regina calls, "she is."

Her hands are still balled into the fabric of her skirt, the noise, the magic, is nauseating this close, but she walks closer.

The head on the table is a particularly gruesome sight, for sure, but she hides her disgust, her horror, Regina keeps her face blank as she studies it. It is not a horror she has seen before in her many years.

"Regina," Snow's sweet voice, so goddamned sweet, calls to her, "we knew you were hurt so-"

"Spare me," Regina tries to spit, but it comes out tired, and she doesn't even care, does not even glance at Snow, at her earnest eyes and little tiny pink mouth turned down into a frown.  
Regina reaches for a clean corner of the blood soaked bundle, and turns the severed head in a complete circle, dark eyes intent on it, throwing the horror, the disgust, out of her mind, until she is left only with the magic. In the time for that head to turn, she filters through a hundred of Maleficent's beautiful old books, dozens of old lessons with the Rumple, searching, searching, until the magic at the tips of her fingers is recognizable.

"Do you know what Dark magic this is?" She thinks it is David to ask, but the room is spinning, breakfast threatening to reappear and so she does not look up to check.

A chair touches the back of her knees, she hadn't even known she'd summoned it, but nevertheless sinks down gratefully on the hardwood seat of the chair. "Thaemtonum," she breathes, and brings her hands before her mouth.

"What is that?" Snow asks, and Regina does not look at her. Regina stares deep into the rolling, panicked eyes of the man's head on the table.

"It's a very complicated spell," she abbreviates and does not mention that Rumple would not speak of it, that it was written in blood in the darkest tome in Mal's library. "It tethers the soul," she allows, turning finally away from the gruesome horror before her, she does not say that it is forever, that it is eternity of suffering, a hundred fold more powerful and painful then a sleeping curse, this man is doomed even beyond the ending of the world.

"So, he is still alive?" David asks.

And, gods, how Regina wishes she could find it within herself to snort at his stupidity, but even that is too much. "No, no, he is certainly not alive," she answers simply, with no inflection. Cursed after death, if he had a True Love, even then he couldn't be saved. Why would the green bitch do this? What point is there to throwing so much magic, so much darkness, on a simple soldier?

Regina's shroud of magic, an invisible shroud that she can feel the weight of on her shoulders, it is draining quickly, her power is drained, her shields withering before his screams, before the magic that keeps him here after death. The head cannot stay in the castle, it would drive her mad.

"Can you hear him?" Robin asks, worry in that accented voice, care, and fear, all for her and she cannot look at him.

"Yes, I can hear him," she admits with hands still clasped in front of her, elbows shaking against the table and she feels the eyes of everyone on her, they weigh her appearance, and she knows they look at her and see that she is weak. She feels weak.

"What is he saying?" Snow asks, such a sweet little voice, almost unchanged from girl to woman.

Regina listens through her dwindling shields, will not entertain the idea of lowering them completely to hear everything he is screaming. This is the last he will say in this world, the last anyone will hear him, but she will not lift her shroud. What she hears is enough, muffled and lost a little, the meaning is clear. "He is somewhere dark, he cannot see, he screams for help." She swallows, breathes, in then out, this man had been named Ben in Storybrooke, he rode a motorcycle, and helped old ladies carry their groceries. "It is cold, and wet, he feels creatures, slimy and cruel all around him." Regina shudders, closes her eyes, "The panic is on him. He screams for his brothers, Tek and William, he doesn't know why they don't come, he's begging them-"

A warm, strong hand envelops Regina's. "Stop," he says, a plea, and Regina does. There is more, there will forever be more, this man will never stop screaming, never, even after he has decayed and long generations have lived and died, his soul will remain screaming.

She does not pull away from the thief's grip. Strength flows through his hand and into her, her shields boost, her shroud heavy once more, the comforting weight of a fine fur in the middle of winter. She is too grateful to question why.

"Can you set him free?" aw, Snow is crying.

"No," Regina admits, like it's shameful.

"Why not?" Grumpy snarls at her, the dwarf leaning over the table at her, anger and hostility blatant on his face, all of it misplaced, this once, how dare he? As if she had done this thing. It was the witch, the green bitch, she had done this, did it to show her power.

"It isn't that I won't, dwarf," she spits, anger blinding her until it all puffs away, gone in an instant. "It's that I can't," she admits, she is not stronger then this spell, would not have it in her to even cast it. Her sister is more powerful than her. That's why Zelena did this. So Regina would know, so everyone in this godforsaken chamber would know.

She tears her hands from the thief, feels instantly the loss of that flow of strength, is stricken when the warmth of his hand against the chill that surrounds her is gone.

Regina storms from the chamber.

Her hands fly again to her ears as her shields splutter, instinct is too strong to fight as she steps quickly down the hall, around a corner, another corner, a hall, on and on, she doesn't even know where she is going. She knows only that she needs more distance, more space, needs to get away.

She needs to get away.

She needs it gone from the castle.

She can't hear over the screams, she can't hear anyth-

It isn't until she trips over a stone that she even knows she has exited the castle. Mid-afternoon sun streams down at her as she sits, rocking back and forth on the smooth stones of a rarely used courtyard, the servants entrance, and that's all she ever was in this castle, a servant to a King, to a Princess, until she became a slave to darkness instead.

Hands are on her, her shoulders.

She swats them away, a wordless yell escapes her.

"Regina," that voice, "Regina," saying her name over and over.

It's him.

Hands are on her shoulders again, and strength flows through them, warmth washing over her, the shroud, the warm fur in a frigid night, it wraps around her shoulders, warmth, like from a fire in a welcoming hearth, spreads over from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. It's comfort. It's safety.

She gasps against him, shudders.

She lets him hold her.

She can no longer hear the screams.

When her mind is finally clear, the screams gone, the head must have been removed from the castle, she doesn't know how long it took, how long she stayed in his embrace for, Regina looks up at him, at his frightened face, she's waking from a daze. Relief spreads across his features, his hands on her shoulders tighten briefly and he smiles.

"Let me go," she says, her voice is hoarse, had she been screaming? She doesn't know.  
He nods, does as she asks, but doesn't back away, he stays crouching beside her. "Would it be very rude to ask what just transpired?"

Regina looks away from him, mulls it over for a moment. "I had an adverse reaction to the magic placed on that man," she finally decides to tell him.

He guffaws quietly. "Quite the reaction," he says.

She looks up at him, so close to her, and feels the tips of her lips turn upward at the barely restrained, almost comically confused, face he's wearing. His dimples, he gave his dimples to his son, she finds herself cataloging. And then reality crashes back at her and she slips farther away from him before standing on her own and straightening the skirt of her gown, wrinkled and rumpled and now covered in dust. She nods curtly and tries to walk away.

He calls her name, her name, and she stops.

She is frightened of him, a realization she nearly denies, because she fears no one, but she is terrified. She can't lie to herself for very long. She’s afraid of the closeness that feels right when he is looking at her. He's a stranger. He is nothing. She doesn't turn to look at him as she tells him, "Leave me alone."

Regina can hear his boots against the stone, as he steps behind her, close, the air leaving his lungs ghosts against her neck he is so close, and it feels natural, like it should be that way always. "Is that what you want?" he asks, he sounds as lost as she is.

Without giving an answer she walks from him, and he lets her.

_____________________________________________________________________________

When she stormed from the council chamber, he followed her-

She cannot hear him, Robin knows.

Robin doubts it is wholly because of the way her hands cover her ears.

She is trembling all over as quick unsteady steps carry her away.

When Robin overtakes her he can see her wide eyes are clouded over with glowing purple. Magic, he shrinks back, aware of the power behind such things and thinks better than to touch her. But the urge is stronger then he'd admit and it surprises him how much he wishes he could hug her to his chest and make it all better.

He follows after her, corner after corner, hall after hall. They pass four people, people Robin doesn't know and each one stops to stare in fear at the woman who pays them exactly zero mind. Their curious eyes dig into Robin's back as he follows Regina closely, he doesn't think to hide the concern he feels.

Robin is a man of the forest, able to orient himself in any woodland place, but he has no idea where they are in the castle after only a few turns. Each stone hall is similar to the last; they are huge and drafty halls still covered in dust. They hit suddenly into a courtyard, through a door and suddenly in sunlight, Robin squints with an arm upraised to block the sun blinding him.

He calls out as she stumbles down onto the cobblestones. She doesn't get up. She starts to rock back and forth with shoulders hunched and hands still covering her ears.

"Regina," he calls and jogs to her. He reaches for her shoulders.

She flinches back from his touch. Her eyes still smoky purple, frightening on her beautiful face. She swats at him, yells, and he backs away for only a moment before his hands return to steady her. His hands are gentle on her.

"Regina," he repeats and holds her steady.

Slowly, so slowly, he watches that purple haze disappear from her brown eyes, until she is left blinking up at him. Brown eyes, so lovely in the sunlight, they blink up at him in recognition. Robin smiles as relief sweeps through him and the urge to hold her returns, stronger than before. His hands clench around her shoulders, and that is all he allows to come of it.

"Let me go," she says, staring up at him and he can see fear in her, hidden not as well as she'd no doubt want.

He does as she bids immediately, but cannot bring himself to put distance between them, worry gnawing at him as he crouches beside her on the ground.

"Would it be very rude to ask what just transpired?" he asks, and he knows that it is magic, but does not know the why, cannot even begin to fathom it.

Her jaw works slowly, and she looks away from him, somewhere off to the side. "I had an adverse reaction the magic placed upon that man," she eventually says, and it's not nearly as much of an answer as Robin would like.

"Quite the reaction," he says, overwhelmed and worried, he lets out an uncomfortable chuckle.  
When she looks at him again, tiny smile at the corners of her painted mouth, her red, red mouth, his heart starts beating madly. The sight of her smile breathes a little more life into embers long left without warmth.

As if she can read his exact thoughts, she backs away from him, smile slipping away as she stands. She is steady on her feet as she straightens her skirt, looks at him and nods. She is walking away, as if nothing has happened.

"Regina!" he calls, because he cannot simply let her walk away, he can't.

She stops at his voice, but does not turn. "Leave me alone," she near whispers, voice quiet in the stillness of the courtyard, in the late summer air. Robin's heart clenches painfully, looking at her standing there, disheveled braid shining in the sun.

Robin walks as close as he can without touching her. "Is that what you want?" he asks, face twisting up, if it is her will, he will comply, of course, and he is no fool, knows he is growing…fond of her and he should not be, of course not, she is a witch and the Evil Queen, but he is drawn to her and he doesn't even know her but he wants to gods he wants to know everything about her.

She leaves him with no answer.

________________________________________________________________________

The next morning the Merry Men can read his sour mood and they give him distance. Looks are thrown around him and answering shrugs are silently thrown back from man to man.

He sees her for a moment, a plate with not nearly enough food in her hand before she sits alone at a long table. Her eyes never stray from her plate.

He remembers her request, and turns away, stalking out of the cavernous dining chamber.

_________________________________________________________________________

The boy is all of twenty, with scruff on his face that he probably calls a beard. His brother is even younger, perhaps sixteen.

Tek and William, the brothers of the man cursed for eternity.

Robin frowns; sympathy runs through him. He knows well the pain of losing brothers, perhaps not by related by blood, but brothers all the same. The boys stand before Snow White and David and they are filled with righteous anger. They are pleading for retaliation, for an attack, and when refused, they beg for a scouting mission instead, for a chance at the witch that took their brother from them.

As if they can defeat the witch with bow or blade.

But a scouting party is what is needed, David and Snow both agree; obviously the cursed man had stumbled upon the witch, within the kingdom, not even two days ride from this very keep. It's an unpleasant thing, to think she remains so close. But the boys won't be joining the mission.

David shakes his head as he stands tall, a rich cloak draped over his shoulders and held in place with an emerald brooch. He wears sad eyes but speaks with an impatient voice, this back and forth has been going on half an hour, the boys won't be allowed to go, they are too young, too inexperienced. David lays his hand on the table,"As your King-"

"You are not my King!" the oldest says vehemently, loud in the suddenly quiet chamber. “This kingdom has no King!”

David rears back as if slapped, indignation on his handsome face, and Snow beside him is no better. Robin thinks better of it before he smirks, and jabs an elbow into John's ribs when the other man guffaws.

"Excuse me?" David asks, and any mirth Robin had felt is gone in an instant at David's tone, that tone speaks of dungeons and consequences, of Royals too inflated with their own power.

The youngest, Tek, looks towards the only seated figure, who has remained silent until this point. Regina, who Robin has made a point not to look at.

Tek bites his lips for a moment, hands fisted at his sides; more nervous looking at the prospect of speaking to the seated women then he'd been during the entire conversation with Snow and David. "Your majesty," he says with the hope in his voice audible to everyone.

Snow and David look between Regina and the boys, scowls on their kind faces, as if this is something neither of them ever imagined happening when they'd offered sharing the keep. And it's silly of them both, Robin thinks, Regina had been the reigning monarch for long years before Snow reclaimed the throne. These boys, they were raised under Regina's banner before being swept to the other land.

Regina lifts her gaze from the table top and looks at both boys, head tilting to the side. "What would you ask of me?" she says, she sounds calm.

"Allow us to execute justice!" Tek cries, and Robin's heart wrenches as the boys voice breaks at the end.

"You," she points at Tek, "are a child," the boy rocks back on his heels, mouth opening, glaring, she silences him with a look, "and are not going anywhere." She rises from her seat, and Robin feels the unease grow around him, bodies shifting, gazes appraising her as she leans hands on the tabletop. "And you, William, with what weapon do you plan on executing justice?"

The older boy swallows, he is nervous and angry. "I can wield a blade, Majesty," he says, but Robin knows he is lying.

Regina seems to know it too. "You've trained with one?" she asks with her disbelieving look growing and, when the boy hesitates, she shakes her head.

"You are fools, the both of you," she says softly, as if she were speaking only to them. "Ben was the soldier, for all the good it did him," it takes Robin a confused second to realize she must be speaking of the cursed man, he had never learned his name.

"You would have us to sit and do nothing?!" William screams shrilly. His arms flail as he takes a step closer to her. Robin scowls at that, but she does not flinch. Her dark eyes are steady as she looks at the boy, the boy almost a man. "While Ben's murderer walks free, terrorizing the land? You'll have us hide within these walls, cowards-"

The boy's mouth snaps shut, surprising even him. Regina has her hand raised, it seems she has closed it for him.

Tension builds as the room sees her magic, but she shocks them all by straightening. "I will go," she says.

"What?" Snow screeches. Robin feels alarm and knows it is showing on his face as Little John throws him a look. Robin remembers the sleeping potion, and the infection she'd allowed to almost claim her life. She's trying for another ending. 

"I forbid it!" Snow says, nearly shrill. "I command you to stay within these walls!" She sounds so strong and sure. There is fear in her eyes and it seems she knows, as well he, the danger Regina is to herself.

Regina snorts softly with eyebrows raised, more mockery in her gaze then affront. "You command me, Snow?" Regina says, and her head tilts with incredulous eyebrows raised.

Snow swallows and stands strong, but in her eyes Robin can already see she knows it is futile.

"I will go," Robin says. He hadn't even realized he'd opened his mouth, but the words are out and he would not take them back.

Regina hesitates before turning her gaze on him with a calm mask carefully arranged over her features. "There will be no need for a thief," she says.

"It is a lucky thing that I have many skills," he volleys back.

Annoyance flashes across her face, pinching it, but before she can say another word-

"I will go as well," David says with Snow clutching at his arm. He looks down at his wife, over to his almost mother-in-law, and smiles a smile that looks more like a grimace. "Just a scouting mission," David clarifies, voice stern, looking at Regina, "do you understand?"

She throws a withering glance at him, lips cinched together, and nods.

_____________________________________________________________________________

The horses are only half broken. They were left for twenty eight cursed years without a rider, left wandering fields and empty villages; they are wild and no longer accustomed to their saddles or the weight of people. But needs must.

Robin holds the reigns of a young mare with one hand, Roland held against him with the other. The mare is sweet and nudges at his shoulder, nuzzling Roland as he giggles and pats her neck.

Roland starts squirming in Robin's hold though, and Robin doesn't need to look to know that the boy has seen Regina. With a sigh Roland drops his son gently on his feet and watches as he scampers across the yard. Charming comes strutting towards the waiting horses, Regina silent and dark next to him. She's wearing the most utilitarian outfit Robin has seen her in, dark trousers and a tunic, finely made, rich materials, but it is built for a trek, not for fashion, yet it fits her form like a glove. Robin's eyes swing over her, before he clears his throat and fights off a flush when she catches him.

"Regina!" Roland calls. He hops up and down as he approaches her with a smile on his face.

David frowns down at the boy and gives Robin a look that he ignores.

Regina kneels down and smiles softly at the child. "Hello, dear," she greets.

"Papa says I can't go," Roland says. He’s all puppy dog eyes and pouting mouth.

"Of course not, Roland," she chastises. When Roland looks up, offended and hurt, she smiles at him and doesn't hesitate to reach out and grab his little hands with her own. "You must stay and defend the castle," she proclaims.

The boy's disappointment melts away; he gapes at her with a grin.

"Our strongest and most brave must stay behind, dear, to protect the innocent." She swings their joined hands slightly, her smile growing, it is more warmth than the sun that beats down on them. "It is a great burden to ask of you, Ser Roland, but please, I would trust no one better."

Roland nods quickly, and Regina sweeps in and kisses Roland's cheek. Robin smiles at that, but when Roland turns to speak of his great duty to his father, Regina stays kneeling on the ground, horror washes over her features as she leans back. Robin frowns, takes a step forward, but Regina climbs to her feet, going to her horse, shoulders tight.

Robin watches her with a frown until Roland starts to tug on his trousers. Robin sweeps down and pulls the boy into a great body crushing hug. "You have your mission, young man," he says, and begins tickling Roland's sides until the child is squealing, "now go, off to the kitchens." Robin places him down and taps him on the rear, "off with you."

Roland scampers away and turns to wave once as Robin watches him go, smile fading as the boy disappears from view.

The sweet mare nudges Robin's shoulder, and when he turns he sees David looking at him, eyebrows raised.

"What?" Robin asks. He’s not at all liking the look on the other man's face, it's like he's being judged.

David shrugs and sweeps onto his horse, the biggest of the three, a gelding probably more used to the plow then a saddle.

Robin looks to Regina; she's adjusting the straps of her saddle. Her mount is the dark stallion. The beast is pawing at the ground with his ears twitching.

Robin had thought that to be David's horse and opens his mouth to question the arrangement of the animals, but just as quickly shuts his mouth as she clambers atop the stallions back. As she’s settling in her seat she steers the beast towards the gate. David follows behind on his gelding and gives Robin one more look and before he turns away.

Robin grumbles and swings himself astride.

______________________________________________________________________

Regina sits at the great white oak table of the Council chambers. Tek and William. They are only boys, boys without their brother now. 

She volunteers for a scouting mission. Her sister is close. She can almost feel her.

"What!?" Snow shrieks.

Regina feels the ghost of a smirk on her lips, but it doesn’t linger.

Snow shakes her head, long black hair sweeps about her shoulders and over her back. Her beautiful face is hard as stone. "I forbid it! I command you to stay within these walls!"

Regina blinks and almost snorts. Snow has no power over her, and even if she did have, Regina would never be confined anywhere ever again. Her mother had done, King Leopold had done, and Regina would rather die than see another follow in their wake. Snow has no power, not over Regina, and so it is with mockery that Regina decides to respond. “You command me, Snow?" she says. She feels the urge to laugh, at sweet Snow White, following in her father's footsteps after so long, but squashes it down, it would do her no good to look mad.

Snow stands strong with her shoulders squared. She’s blinding in her white gown as the sun shines through the high windows, but she already knows her failure. Regina, who'd been this girl's glorified nursemaid, can see that.

"I will go,” Robin says.

Regina swallows and lets a beat pass before she turns her head towards the thief. She smooths her features and when she turns to regard him it’s with a blank and uninterested look. "There will be no need for a thief.”

His arms are crossed and he stares right back at her. She refuses to flinch from his anger. "It’s a lucky thing that I have many skills," he bites out.

How dare he, she thinks, as if he has any right to that anger, as if she can't do whatever she likes, whenever she likes. Her mask is slipping, she knows; snarl forming on her mouth-

"I will go as well."

Regina turns away from Robin, dark eyes burning into David's as the other man grimaces. Snow is clinging to her husband's arm, imploring eyes looking up at him, he pats her hand comfortingly, once, and Regina burns, watching this little girl gang up on her with her shepherd prince of a husband and her thieving outlaw friend. Corralling her, squeezing her in her grasp…

"Just a scouting mission," David says, like he's talking to a child. "Do you understand?"

She almost chokes on her rage. She can't speak around it, but sees nothing else to do but nod.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Snow is there the next day. Her and Charming, hand in hand, at the base of the central stairs, they are waiting for Regina.

Regina stops three steps above them and says nothing.

Snow shifts uncomfortably, and good, Regina thinks, let her squirm.

"Regina," she says and takes a step forward, but not a step up the stairs. Her hand held behind her now, still in David's grasp.

Regina sighs, deep from her lungs and looks away from those big eyes, they are so much like Henry's and it burns, his absence, his blood, everything about her beautiful baby burns in her for a moment and the pain floods through, a torrent. "What, Snow?" she says, closing her eyes, thwarting the shameful chance of tears.

"Please be careful," Snow says quietly.

Regina can’t bear to look at her, at the pleading she'll wear on her face, as if she means it, and Regina cannot have her mean it. Hatred runs too deep, hatred has run too deep for too long, every day as Leopold's wife, every day Snow evaded her in the forest, and even every single day in Storybrooke, hatred grew, stabbing deeper and deeper in Regina's heart, hatred for the little girl that couldn't keep one measly secret, the little girl that had stolen Regina's life, her happiness, her dreams, the little girl that had wanted a mother, and the little girl's father that had only been too happy to oblige.

Regina descends without a response, without a glance, and hears behind her as Snow and David say their goodbyes and share a kiss. "I'll take care of her," she hears David say, and rage and despair and a dozen other things boil within her, before they all fade, ebb away like a wave sloshing back to the ocean. She lets them all go, they are worthless, it's all just worthless.

With powerful strides David catches up to her. He adjusts the sword he wears on his belt, and his hand hovers over the small of her back for a moment as they walk down the courtyard steps. A wordless snarl escapes her and David snaps his hand back as if burned, but she sees concern in his eyes, instead of fear.

The sun shines high above them in the blue, cloudless sky. It shines off Roland's hair as he comes scurrying across the courtyard. A smile tipped with sadness settles on Regina's face at the sight. The emptiness so recently settled makes way for a small spark of fondness for the little boy. He nearly trips twice on the edge of his cloak. "Regina!" he calls, as if she is not just a step away.

Regina falls to one knee before him. "Hello, dear," she says as she looks at this beautiful, happy child.

"Papa says I can't go," he says with a pout. His dark eyes widen pitifully and Regina could have chuckled if she'd had the strength. She'd long become immune to the effects of puppy eyes and pouts.

"Of course not, Roland," she says. She reaches out for his tiny hands and folds them up in her own. Hurt blooms on his little face. "You must stay and defend the castle," she continues. The hurt on his face disappears as fast as it had appeared. She runs her thumbs over his soft, chubby little hands as she swings them softly. He's such tiny child, it seems so long ago Henry was so small. "Our strongest and most brave must stay behind, dear, to protect the innocent."  
He grins at her, nothing but happiness on his face.

"It is a great burden to ask of you, Ser Roland, but please, I would trust no one better," she finishes her little act in this play, the Queen and her brave Knight.

He frantically nods his head, gaze as serious as a little boys can be, biting his bottom lip, and like it is nothing, she leans in to capture his cheek with a kiss, soft, warm skin pliant against her lips, and it's only as she leans back that sorrow washes over her.

A child.

Not her child.

It will never again be her child.

Regina climbs to her feet, she would rather lay unmoving forever, but she climbs to her feet. She's going to bring Ben's body back to his brothers, perhaps not heroic, but the right thing, what Henry would want. She will do what Henry would want her to do.

Regina steps towards her horse. He is a beautiful beast with a dark coat. He paws at the ground as she nears, and perhaps he will throw her, she thinks. His ears threaten to flatten on his head as she adjusts the straps, they had been too tight, but the horse seems no more comfortable than before, glares at her with large, dark eyes. And yes, she thinks he will throw her.

She climbs into the saddle and turns the beast towards the gate.

__________________________________________________________________________

"The boy is fond of you," David says much later. David is not a natural rider, he is jittery and nervous, which makes the horse under him jittery and nervous.

But she doesn’t care.

And she doesn’t answer his thinly veiled question, because it had been a question, suspicion lined into every word, like he thinks she were planning some horrible fate for the boy.

Robin calls up from behind them. He sways gently with his mares strides. "Very fond," he tells David. “He’s never taken to someone so well.”

Regina looks at neither of them. She kicks her heels in and gets in front of David as the path suddenly narrows.

___________________________________________________________________

A widowmaker is creaking off in the woods. Regina has heard it for the last few minutes.

"He is very fond of you, you know," Robin says. She hadn't known he'd taken David's place beside her when the path widened again, she'd been lost in her thoughts.

Regina looks at him and tightens her grasp on the reins before averting her gaze.

"I'm grateful," Robin continues, and Regina knows that he is looking at her, can feel his gaze, "to see him smile so."

Regina takes a breath, and another. "He's a charismatic child," she says finally.

She hears him chuckle. "It's the dimples, I think.”

Regina feels the corners of her lips moving upward. "The dimples you gave him?" and again his chuckle floats through the air. "He's beautiful," she says, and the heartbreak is so close to the surface, her smile slips away, because she'd had a beautiful child too, once, but not anymore. Her beautiful baby boy, her everything, he was- he was everything.

That's when the widowmaker falls, crashing to the ground with a sharp crack somewhere off to the right.

The stallion startles under her, he rears back on his hind legs and bucks wildly.

It runs through Regina’s mind how far off the ground she is and what damage could be done in the fall. One of the first lessons on riding horse is how to fall without injury, but a vision of blood splattered on the hard packed trail flashes before her. She shoves it violently back. She won’t fall. Henry wouldn’t want that. 

The stallion is hard to soothe. She tries. He bucks her off.

The stallion throws her.

She could have kept her seat, if she’d tried harder. She regrets the decision the moment after it's made.

___________________________________________________________

The crack that rips through the air startles Robin’s mare badly.

The mare tries to bolt. Robin pulls on her reins with his blood thrumping suddenly through his ears. He tuts his tongue as the animal spins wildly and wickers and dances, her hooves far too close to where Regina has curled up in a ball on the ground.

The stallion had thrown her.

Robin barely keeps his seat, but the mare lacks the power to cast him off. He works to calm the beast, eyes wide as he whips his head wildly to keep Regina in his view. She has not moved. Regina had yelped as she'd struck the ground, but then only silence.

The sound reverberates in Robin's mind as he calms the frantic animal. The sound burns in his ears until he's able to sweep off his mare with a comforting hand running on her neck as he scurries to Regina's side.

"Regina," he calls with his hands on her. He runs his hands over her shoulders, her back, afraid to move her. The stallion had stomped angrily above her before bolting and Robin fears the worst, a shattered skull, a caved in chest cavity, a wound so sudden and dire that she hadn't even had time to cry out. "Regina," he breathes desperately.

The winded groan she exhales is heaven to his ears. His eyes close in relief for only a moment before opening them again. She rolls to her back with legs scuttling against the hard packed dirt of the trail. She ends up almost in his lap as she looks up into the blue sky and coughs.

He isn't even aware of the grip he's got on her coat, fingers clenched in the dark fabric, but then David is beside him and the other man smooths Robin's hands, working at his fingers and he's talking to him.

"It's alright, let her up," David says and finally succeeds in loosening Robin's fingers.

She doesn't get up. She makes no move to get up, and she's not coughing any longer but almost wheezing with deep lungfuls of air drawn in and then choked out. David seems surprised, like he'd expected her to walk away unscathed. "Regina," David says, concern coloring his voice as he reaches forward and sweeps a lock of hair out of her face. "Hey, Regina, you okay?" he asks.

She turns her face away from David's hand, and she might be nodding.

"Regina," and now David looks pretty close to panic, eyes wide, and Robin watches him, frantic. 

She grumbles something and curls over on her arm, facing away from them.

"Fine," she hisses at them, but she makes no further move to stand.

"We'll make camp," Robin says. "It's nearing sundown, and I don't fancy traveling the trail in the dark. My mare will break a leg. Would that be alright, Regina?”

She claws herself into a sitting position, still facing away from them.

After a moment with no answer, but for a curl of her back, Robin nods at David, and they both stand, concerned eyes looking back at her every step as they go to where the gelding is chomping on some grass.

She staggers to her feet and follows after. The sweet mare approaches her and Robin watches as Regina leans against the mares side. Fifteen minutes off the trail, closed in by big, old roots, sprung up from dark and moist dirt, they settle.

Regina conjures a fire, and sits heavily next to it.

____________________________________________________________________

David snores.

And while Robin has had to share many a camp site with many a snorer, he finds David's the most grating. He tosses and turns on his bedroll for a while before he shoots up with a huff.

He finds amused brown eyes watching him over the crackling fire. She'd been their first watch.

"You think this is funny?" he asks. He tries and fails to keep irritation out of his voice, because he hasn't seen that good humor directed at anyone but Roland and he'd like to keep it there.

Regina shrugs one shoulder, a flicker of pain crosses her face before she turns her gaze away from him, but a smirk still rests on her lips. "I do," she admits without even quieting her voice, not that the sleeping man even notices.

"He'd keep you awake as well," Robin grumbles. He grabs a long stick and pokes at the fire.

"I've slept beside worse.”

Yes, he thinks, she probably had.

Robin lifts his gaze from the flames and watches shadows dance on her turned away face, her lovely face. "Are you in pain?" he asks, and he knows she is, can tell by her hunched back, the arm she wraps around her ribs.

"No," she lies.

Robin shakes his head with eyebrows raised. Minutes pass in silence.

"Who will you ride with?" he asks her.

"Excuse me?" she asks and turns to him startled, like she'd forgotten he was awake.

"Who will you ride with?" he asks again, studying her as her face crumples in confusion and then a solid grimace.

"Oh," she says.

He chuckles. "oh, is right," he says with crinkles in the corner of his eyes as he looks at her.

"I haven't shared a horse since I was a child," she mumbles bewilderedly.

"My mare would hold us both, I think," he mentions, as innocently as possible, but he can't keep the smirk off his face, he'd have no problem with her so close.

She snorts, and it's quite an unladylike gesture, yet she does it quite often. He likes it.

"I'll ride with David," she says. A real shot of jealousy shoots through Robin, unexpected and hot, suddenly the other man's snores are the most annoying thing Robin has ever heard.

"My mare is so sweet though," Robin says, voice light, but the jealousy boils, even as he tells himself he is silly, and too old to be feeling like this, and in any case David is very Truly in love with Snow White, so it does not matter if Regina would rather wrap her arms around David, ride behind David, front to back with David. "And," he gestures at the sleeping man, "his shoulders are so broad you won't be able to see a thing from around him, what if we were to encounter an ambush?"

She's looking at him like he's mad.

And quite suddenly he feels mad.

An awkward silence follows and it's not often Robin feels awkward but it's on him now and-

"If," she says, "David is amicable to the idea of putting all the supplies on that plow horse of his," she pauses, takes a breath, and looks at him, and he thinks he sees her flinch, "then the mare could hold you and I."

He swallows and pokes at the fire, but he knows could is not the same as will.

"You should sleep," he tells her. He sits straighter. "I'll keep watch."

She shakes her head. "You have another two ho-"

"I cannot sleep while this cacophony," he smirks as he waves vaguely over David's form, "erupts from this man."

The grateful expression she throws him is unexpected, as is her easy acquiescence, and she must be hurt worse than Robin had suspected. With a nod she turns away and lowers herself gingerly onto her bedroll.

Robin watches her fire lit back between monitoring the woods and is filled with reassurance as he can see her lungs filling, and exhaling, softly, rising, then falling, she's quiet in her sleep.

He wakes David hours later, for his watch.

"I don't know how Snow gets any sleep with you around," he mumbles and doesn't wait for a response before he sprawls and is asleep at once.

__________________________________________________________________

The next morning when Robin sees David loading up the gelding with all the supplies he can't help the bright smile that lights his face. David narrows his eyes as he cinches a saddle bag and looks confused as Robin claps a hand on his shoulder. Regina is gently rubbing the mare's nose as she whispers the horse like it's an old friend; he thinks his smile will never wear away.

He does manage to bring it down somehow, he knows that Regina is as skittish as the stallion that had thrown her, and even a smile is enough to have her bolt.

He climbs into the saddle and holds a hand out a hand to her, patient and waiting as she looks at the hand, then his face.

It's with a sigh that she eventually lets him help her up.

She settles behind him, tries to keep her distance, even as she wraps her arms loosely around his middle, barely holding on, but the saddle is only so large. After one step he hears a hiss from her. The breath of it blowing over his ear.

"Are you alright?" he asks quietly and rests a hand over one of hers.

"Fine," and he can imagine the grimace on her features as the lie shoots through her lips.

"You can lean on me," he whisper. He doesn't look at her.

"I don't need too," she answers.

He fights the urge to sigh. "I know you don't," he tells her.

Another three slow steps of the horse and then she does though, warm and solid against his back, she sighs, pain filled and sharp, the air blows across the back of his neck. Her arms tighten around his middle and he can feel her tucking her forehead between his shoulder blades.

He pats her hand softly, and passes by David as he stares at them.


	4. Chapter 4

Regina lets go of the reins.

She could have kept her seat and calmed the stallion,

but instead _she drops the reins_.

As she’s tumbling from the saddle instant regret washes over her, but it's too late to take it back.

Henry wouldn't want this, she knows, and what she wants is unclear, but it isn't this, not this. She'd seen a stable hand thrown and trampled once, it had been the most brutal thing she'd seen at the time. He’d been young and poorly trained and he didn’t scramble fast enough before the entire weight of the horse had fallen on his legs. The boys legs had broken. He had screamed and screamed and wriggled on the ground before a hoof met his skull and there was only blood and bone and brain matter on hard packed dirt.

Regina doesn’t want that.

Once on the ground, with the air in her lungs stolen by the impact and with her eyes slammed shut, she curls her arms inward as she rolls away from savage hooves of the stomping stallion.

Blood pumps through her veins, it’s thrumming in her head as she chokes on dirt and dust. Fear tenses her whole body and agony rips through her chest, courtesy of at least two broken ribs.

She'd let go of the reins.

She’s _so stupid. So stupid_.

Her name is being called, but she can barely hear.

Hands are on her back and they are gentle and hesitant as they run over her shoulders. Strength flows through those hands. Robin.

Regina unfurls herself and stifles a cry as she does so. She lies on her back in the dirt, coughing as her head pounds with adrenaline. When she opens her eyes her vision erupts in bright spots. She tries to blink them away. Pain lances up her body, and that's not right, that's not right because she's escaped plenty worse than this completely unscathed.

Robin is clutching at her arm; his fingers digging into the fabric and pinching her skin in a bruising grip.

She'll heal herself, she decides, and it'll be like she hadn't made this mistake at all. She tries to pull the magic forward but it won't come. She tries again, wheezing as those broken ribs shift, and her magic still won't come.

"It's alright. Let her up," David says.

And then Robin's hands are gone, cold where warmth had been.

She is nothing without her magic. Horror washes over her, her magic won't come, _useless_ , a voice whispers, _defenseless_ , another cries. _Stupid._

"Regina," David's voice again. "Hey, Regina, you okay?"

Her hair is swept back off her forehead, it’s David's calloused fingers against her face. Regina flinches and turns away.

Defenseless, the voice says, louder, and in response she rolls off her back, curls over her arm away from them and breathes in. She keeps a gasp from escaping. The pain is excruciating. "Regina, are you okay?" David asks again.

"Fine," she grits out through her teeth. She can feel their eyes on her back; she takes care to smooth her breathing and blink back tears, unwilling to let either man see her that vulnerable.

A weighty pause and then, "We'll make camp," Robin says. "It's nearing sundown, and I don't fancy traveling the trail in the dark. My mare will break a leg."

Regina swallows as she decides to accept this flimsy excuse. She refuses to think of how she's the reason they need to stop. The men rise and begin to walk away. She gets herself sitting with her legs sprawled in the dirt as sweat is already beginning to dot her forehead. She should be stronger than this.

She’s a fool, she thinks, she could have landed unhurt, but had failed even in that. Her foot had caught for just a second in the stirrup, and she knows she is lucky she escaped without a mangled and twisted leg, but her failure still burns, right along with her broken ribs.

With a grimace, and a whimper that she hopes they didn't hear, she rises staggeringly. She hunches forward and wraps one arm around her ribs. She reaches blindly for the mare, and the sweet girl comes to her easily and lets her lean against her side.

It's an eternity before the men she follows finally stop and in that time she's attempted to heal herself twice more. Each time has left her exhausted and thoroughly unhealed. Bright spots and dizziness swept over her at her last failure, she'd fallen even more heavily against the mare and had barely held herself up as she almost passed out.

David calls an end to their trek. Regina can feel his worried eyes on her. His concern chafs at her, this ignorant shepherd turned prince, he looks at her with pity and she knows David presumes to see a broken person instead of the Queen she'd once been, the Mayor she was for years longer, the woman she is, the mother, the fighter, most of all the survivor, and she won't think about her now numerous attempts on her own life because at her core she is a survivor. She had survived her mother and her cruelty, she had survived Leopold and the dignity stealing acts he called her duty. In a moment she imagines David is every wrong and terrible thing done to Regina, she imagines him in flames, screaming as it eats at his skin, and it is her mother burning, and it is Leopold burning, but most of all it is Snow, her sweet voice, her doe eyes, the innocence she drapes about her shoulders, it is all burned black.

She feels a spark through her, shocking and painful, as a campfire sprouts out of nothing right beside her. She collapses down onto the ground and hopes it looks like she chose to sit instead of her legs completely giving up on her. A sigh of relief works between her lips, her magic is there, it will not heal her, but it is there to protect her.

________________________________________

"I'll keep watch," she says.

She wants to be alone, which really is impossible at the moment.

"I'll follow after, and then you David?" Robin responds.

David is already sprawling in his bedroll with a smile on his face as he nods.

_________________________________________

As darkness falls and both men are quiet and still, Regina’s gaze blinks from the fire, to the trees, and back.

Her face is blank even as a storm of emotions rages inside of her. It’s force of habit to hide it. What use is it to show all your ugly insides?

One more failed attempt at healing done an hour ago has left her exhausted, in agony, and completely pissed off. Healing magic had never been her strongest skill. Her first and only lesson had Rumple running her straight through with a short sword. He’d surprised her with it at what was promised to be a potion session. She can still remember coughing up blood and looking up at his giggling face as he pulled the weapon out.

He’d said practical lessons are best as she had collapsed at his feet. She had healed it. It had been a mortal wound but she’d healed it. But even after the healing it had ached for years. There was no visible scar on her smooth skin, but on the inside, where no one could see, it was still, decades later, a mess of scar tissue. She could feel it, almost see it, with her magic. So many attempts to fix it all for naught, but she had healed it and had saved her own life.

Even with her rudimentary skills it should be laughably easy to heal broken ribs. The wounds aren't even life threatening, painful certainly, but not life threatening.

Frustration makes her want to scream and the inadequacy she has felt in some form or another all her life erupts now in a violent bout of self-loathing.

Weak, a voice whispers in her mind. The fire before her blazes white hot in response. Regina’s fingers tense and curl into a fist as she shakes her head.

Returning here, to the Enchanted Forest, to the kingdom she'd left behind, was never something she wanted. She was done with this place, this place that had never been kind to her. She'd killed her own worthless and spineless father, her kind and patient father to be rid of this place and all its horrors and treachery. Finding herself here, after so long and after having lost so much, it’s tearing her apart. It’s reawakening feelings and memories she’d shut behind doors in her mind, it’s digging up things she'd buried. This place will be her downfall.

Robin begins to toss and turn on his bedroll and Regina tears herself out of her own thoughts to study him. He’s grunting unhappily every once and a while and rolling this way and that. It takes perhaps five minutes of silently watching, but a smirk grows on her face. 

When Robin harumphs up, glaring at David, obviously annoyed and tired, Regina’s smirk is slow to disappear.

_____________________________________________________

"Sweet girl," Regina murmurs and smiles as she strokes the sweet mare on her nose.

Nerves run up and down her spine. This is a mistake, she thinks. Being close to Robin in any sense is all a great mistake, worse even than letting herself fall from the stallion. Through the long years of Regina’s life she has learned that to trust another person is something terrible. Every person she had ever trusted had failed her. Her father never saved her from her mother. Snow had betrayed her. Daniel...sweet and wonderful Daniel, he died and left her all alone.

Robin has a way about him that sneaks under all of Regina’s armor. All she has is her armor.

But he had seemed upset at the notion of her sharing a seat with David, and the idea had not exactly thrilled her either. She has only the two options, since she let her stallion run off into the sunset, and of the two only Robin's touch gives her strength.

He must have some latent magic, she has decided, similar enough to her own at its base that she is able to draw from it. He has a distrust of magic that runs deep, she can see it in his face every time it is mentioned or seen. She wonders how he'd feel if he knew it ran in his own blood and in the blood he shares with his son, magic is in Roland's blood.

Robin is smiling as he comes next to her, and as if from far away she realizes he has a handsome smile. Those dimples of his are on full display as crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes. They are laugh lines that speak of years well lived. He has a spattering of grey at each temple. He’s handsome. She’s physically attracted to him, which is just another reason to keep her distance.

He climbs into his saddle and holds a hand out to her, his smile never dimming and such boundless enthusiasm irritates her usually, but she can't muster up anything but a rather lackluster sigh as she takes use of his help and lifts up behind him. The pain of climbing, of being pulled, nearly has her blacking out. She wraps her arms around his middle, loosely, feeling faint, but she will not be some damsel on the back of his horse. Robin tuts his tongue and the mare moves forward. The rocking motion has her pain sharper and more constant. She tightens her grasp on Robin as a hiss escapes her mouth.

"Are you alright?" Robin asks her. 

David doesn't turn from where he's climbed upon the gelding and hopefully he doesn't hear the quietly asked question. Robin rests a hand over her own and instantly her fingers are warm between his abdomen and his palm. That strength, that magic, is the comfort of a heavy fur in winter, it pulls between them and buoys her.

"Fine," she grits out. With his strength it’s almost true. His touch is like a drug. Instant relief, instant strength, all within arms reach. Another reason to keep her distance.

"You can lean on me," he tells her.

She wishes the offer weren't so tempting. It's only partly because of the power she can pull from him. He smells like forest the same way Daniel always smelled of the stable. It's a warm smell, humid and peaceful, heavy and comforting. Every little thing about him seems to pull her in.

"I don't need too," she snaps.

"I know you don't.” His gaze does not waver from the path they travel. The mare carries them both with steady strides that are building into a nice trot. The fight inside Regina’s mind is a fierce one, she's never leaned on anyone, figuratively or literally, because no one had ever been there to be leaned _on_. But such a thing is trust, isn’t it? To trust is to be hurt.

She relaxes against his back, the decision made, and what that decision means, because it doesn't mean trust, or friendship, she doesn't know, but she relaxes against his hard back and tucks herself there with a sigh. With her front to his back she is immersed in calming free flowing magic. It doesn't dim at all as it passes from him to her. She only worries for a moment what this drain, and it must drain him, will do to Robin.

He pats her hand softly before letting his hand rest over hers with his thumb running over the back of her knuckles.

__________________________________________________

It's long and silent hours later that they find Ben's body. It’s laid out like a present in the middle of the path halfway across a meadow.

They dismount the horses and leave them to chomp on long grass.

Regina can sense no magic, not in the meadow, nor on the headless body, but David draws his sword and Robin pulls back an arrow when she gestures for them to do so. The two men flank her as she walks towards the corpse. She steps over fragrant flowers and through long grass to where Ben has been lain with his hands folded over his chest. The sun is shining and an easy breeze has the world rustling. A picturesque scene, but for the body.

"Would you know if the witch is close?" David whispers.

“I don’t know.”

"She could be watching," Robin says with narrowed eyes gazing into the trees around them.

Regina takes another step and something shifts out of the corner of her eye. She stops and does not turn her head to look, but her eyes swish to the side and stare into the impossible darkness between the trees to the west. The meadow is bright and beautiful and the very model of a fine summer day, but under those trees is only darkness. A sensation creeps up Regina’s spine, they are most definitely being watched. It's not the witch but her monkey friends that Regina senses there after a moment of gentle prodding with her magic into the tree line. After another moment she can hear them chittering in the woods as their impatience grows. She turns her head just a bit to make eye contact with Robin. He can hear it too and they share a heavy glance. 

“What do we do?” Robin asks her.

Regina takes another step and ignores the grunted warning from Robin. “Regina,” he says softly.

"Come on," she urges the men just as softly. She moves forward with steps that are not too fast or strained.

The men follow her. "Regina," David warns.

Regina reaches Ben's body and kneels beside it, with a roll of her hand she beckons David and Robin towards her. She urges them to kneel next to her. "Grab on," she says just as the inhuman screech fills the air.

A monkey flies in, nightmarish mouth open and filled with yellow fangs, claws open and bloody. “Grab on!” Regina screams, and finally David and Robin do so. They disappear in a cloud of purple smoke.

_____________________________________________________

They do not merely appear in the thick mud, they _fall_ into the thick mud from a foot off the ground. Regina is panting like she's ran ten miles. She's paled considerably in the five seconds Robin has been looking at her as they sit in the mud. She falls forward with her hands before her and ends up elbow deep in the muck. Her eyes are closed and her face is scrunched in a way that makes it look like she’s about to cry.

“Regina?” Robin asks.

David groans in disgust as he rummages in the mud to find his sword. When he does find it he drags himself out into the creek they landed next to. "Why'd you land us here?" he gripes. He wades into the water up to his waist and cleans and sheaths his sword before dunking his head under and furiously washing mud from his face.

Robin scoots closer to Regina and brushes a thick, muddied tendril of hair over her shoulder. He rests his hand against the back of her neck. "Regina, are you alright?"

She whimpers at his touch and her whole body shudders. Her arms shake with the effort of holding herself up. She nods, but her eyes remain closed. She’s still breathing hard, but she pushes herself through the mud, half crawling and Robin takes the hint and helps her towards the softly churning water.

Regina pushes herself into the creek with a grunt of exertion, on hands and knees with Robin’s hands on her, her eyes still closed. Robin wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her when she makes no effort to stand on her own. He rests her back against his front. She's boneless against him, still panting, her head lolled back onto his shoulder. He glides in until the water is just below her shoulders. He shakes her a little. "Regina," he cups water in his hand and starts to clear mud from her face and from her hair. "Regina, what happened to you?" Robin asks with worry knitting his brow. 

David wades next to them. He reaches out and grasps one of her limp arms around the bicep. "Regina, where are we?"

Robin jostles her just a little as he frees one of his hands and feels the pulse point on her neck, her heart is pounding. 

"Regina," David snaps. He shakes her with his grip on her arm and her whole body rattles against Robin.

"Hey!" Robin growls angrily, and with a hot glare Robin steps back.

"We need to know where we are," David says, but has the sense to look chastised.

Regina's eyes blink open as her head rolls forward. Her face splats into the water before she splutters up coughing.

"Regina," David says and approaches smoothly with his hands raised as if to show he has nothing to harm her with. "Hey, where'd we land? Why didn’t you take us to the castle? How far are we?"

She looks around as her hands come and rest on Robin's forearm, which is still wrapped around her abdomen under the water. Her ribs, Robin remembers then, but he can think of no other way to hold her up in the water. She’s still leaning against him. Something has happened to her.

"It's the river Weeping," she says like it's obvious.

"How far from the castle are we?" David asks. He looks around and his eyes narrow on the corpse they left in the mud.

"A mile," she answers, "perhaps two." Her head lolls back to Robin's shoulder and if anything she sinks further into his embrace. Robin tightens his grasp on her in response, his cheek resting against her wet hair. She turns her head towards him and for a brief moment his lips make contact with her temple. A quick little thing he does not notice. He's worried she'll faint right away and drown in the water when no one is looking.

"Which way?" David demands, and when he sees Regina, weak and limp in Robin's hold he snaps forward, frustration scrunching his face, "Hey-"

Robin grabs at the hand David is stretching out, and David looks surprised.

"You touch her again I'll break your fingers," Robin growls.

David tears his hand away. "Why couldn't you take us straight to the castle?" he demands with his hands resting on his waist below the water.

"It was a trap. The body was cursed," she murmurs. A small sound comes from her throat and Robin wishes to take the pain away, but doesn’t know how.

"What do you mean?" Robin asks. There are all manner of curses in this land.

"Cursed to trap us,” she slurs, “it was bringing us to her, but I tore us away.” Both her hands are resting over Robin’s now. The bandages on her wounded arm are soaked in red tinted mud, it looks like blood on the bandages. He hopes her stitches haven't torn, he worries about another infection.

Robin pushes wet stringy hair off her face and again he touches an almost kiss to her temple.

"Which way to the castle?" David asks. He's schlepping out of the water. His boots stick to the mud the closer he gets to the bank.

"Upstream," Regina says only loud enough for Robin to hear. He repeats it to David as she turns her face towards Robin's neck and nuzzles against him, like a cat searching for warmth. Robin sighs for a moment, pushing his nose into her hair, holding her to him.

The water is warm, and her weight and that of the dead man will be easier to carry in the water, he calls out to David, who looks particularly disgruntled as he tugs on the corpses legs until it slugs out of the mud.

David and Robin, both with their respective charges, plow up the gentle current.

_____________________________________________________

It takes them hours, taking multiple breaks on the bank, their skin pruney and wrinkled as the midday sun beats down on them, it takes them hours to reach the castle.

Regina regains some semblance of coherence for a while, enough to explain better how much magic she'd used to escape the trap that had been set, and she does not say it but Robin knows how utterly and awfully depleted her strength had been by their escape. How does such a thing affect a witch? To have what is in your very being so depleted? Robin plies her with stories to keep her awake. He's frightened by the way her eyes blankly look at him, blinking slowly. He's frightened by the way she makes no move to escape his hold, how she's as limp as when he'd first placed her back against his chest.

She smiles softly at tales of Roland's escapades, and scoffs just as softly at tales of Robin's heroism.

Softly asked questions mumble through her lips every now and again, and Robin finds himself charmed by how hard she's trying to follow his tales when it is so obvious she's close to blacking out. Robin wonders if she is trying so hard for his sake, he wonders if she can see how close he is to panic.

David's grumbles grow louder and louder, but he doesn't suggest switching burdens.

Regina has slipped into unconsciousness when finally the thick outer wall at the rear of the castle can be seen.

A guard quickly spots them and calls behind him and in less than ten minutes a group, led by Snow, is pelting out a small gate and meeting them at the edge of the creek and helping them out. Robin lets Little John take Regina from him. He watches as the other man cradles the Queen against his chest with an arm around her shoulders and an arm under her knees, and Robin, for the first time, realizes how the muscles in his arms and legs burn from their trek.

"What happened?" Snow asks with worried eyes sweeping between Robin, David, and Regina.

David drops the corpse to the ground, shakes his head and he looks so sorry in that instant, like he's failed.

"Is she wounded?" Snow asks.

She steps closer to Regina and places a hesitant hand on her dripping boot.

Robin steps forward. "She had to fight a curse lain on the corpse. It exhausted her magic, and she has some injuries to her ribs. Her horse threw her." 

Snow looks absolutely horrified.

"Let me look at her," a gruff voice calls. The group parts for the old woman, Granny, to approach. Granny tilts Regina's head towards her and cracks open an eyelid and tsks her tongue. She ushers Little John irritably forward with a sharp gesture. "Come on, quick now," she orders.

Little John glances at Robin, and Robin nods.

Robin leaves the corpse to David as he moves to follow the old woman. Granny takes them all to the castle kitchens.

“You, boy,” Granny says and motions towards Robin, “sit here. You,” she says to Little John, “place her down right there with him.”

Robin sits straddling the bench with the warmth of the kitchen welcome as evening descends quickly. John is extraordinarily gentle as he rests Regina with her back against Robin’s chest. Robin wraps both his arms around her waist to keep her steady.

Regina’s eyes blink slowly and it seems she’s trying to speak, but Robin can’t make out what she’s trying to say. He murmurs in her ear and for the third time he kisses her temple, but maybe not a kiss, he rests his lips against her with his nose in her drying hair and merely…

She makes a sharp sound and her legs kick out suddenly. There had been a moment in the river where she’d been lost to Robin, trapped in some vile memory or some hallucination, but the moment had passed quickly. She’s trapped again somewhere. 

“Don’t touch me,” she breathes.

“I’m here, Regina,” Robin tries to tell her. Her hands grip his about her waist and she shakes her head.

“Boy,” Granny grabs his attention. She holds a hunk of chocolate in her hand, scavenged from a hiding place further in the kitchen. "She needs to eat it. It'll give her enough in the tank until she can rest, she’s running on fumes," she explains. Which…is no explanation at all for Robin who merely nods and decides to trust her.

The old woman is hard, but he has heard she is kind. In any case her knowledge is greater than his own when it comes to magic, he doesn't know a thing of it. He has, actually, led his whole life trying to avoid it.

"Regina," he says close to her ear, “Regina, do you know where you are?”

“It’s a prison,” she says. Her voice is weak.

“No,” Robin assures her, “No, Regina, you’re here with me. It’s Robin. I’m with you.”

Robin strengthens his grip around her with one arm and reaches for the chocolate with the other. “Regina, I would never hurt you. I promise you. Please, listen to me.”

Granny hands him the hunk. She’s sucking melted chocolate off her finger tips as she watches Robin hold the treat in front of Regina's face. Regina shakes her head violently, squirming against him.

He tightens his one arm wrapped around her waist. "Regina," he says soothingly, "Regina, calm down. Please, just eat this little bit of chocolate, please. It's only chocolate. Just open your mouth.”

Was it the words? As soon as they leave Robin’s mouth she bucks against him and he very nearly loses his grip.

“Let go of me,” she seethes, fighting again. “Get the fuck off me.” Her voice cracks. “Please don’t, please.”

Robin tucks his head down into the crook of her neck, his face buried in her wet curls. "It's only chocolate. Regina, can you hear me?"

She starts kicking her legs and knocking at the long wooden table beside them. Silverware left out on the table rattles. Robin is now sure she isn't hearing him at all.

She’s fighting bitterly against his grip. Robin fears badly that she’ll hurt her already broken ribs or tear the stitches in her arm, if she hasn’t already.

"Please," she gasps. "Please, don't."

Granny steps forward with a flare of anger crossing her face. Her voice is gentle though, "Shhhh," she soothes, her voice soft. She cups the back of Regina's head when Robin gives her the space to do so. “Girl," she says, "calm down."

Regina does calm, a little, but she still kicks, weaker now. She'd lost one of her boots somewhere, in the mud or in the creek, and that one bare foot kicks and kicks. "Send him someone else," she pleads as she reaches up and holds onto Granny's wrist.

"I have," Granny says easily. "I've sent him someone else. You don't have too, girl, shhh, it's alright."

Regina wilts at the words and collapses against Robin. Granny looks at Robin for a moment and takes the chocolate from his idle hands. It’s so sudden, the way Granny grabs Regina's chin, her other hand still at the back of her head, and forces the chocolate into her mouth. Granny smacks her hand down over Regina’s lips so she can’t spit it out.

Regina bucks wildly, her screams trapped in her mouth as she claws at Granny's hand. She draws blood with her ferocious fight.

Robin holds her down, and Granny’s grip over her mouth never loosens. It takes a full two minutes before Regina stops fighting. She starts to breathe deeply through her nose, her eyes wide. She slowly begins to chew.

"Good girl," Granny sighs and pets Regina's tangled hair.

____________________________________________________

"She was called the Child Queen before she was called Evil," Granny says sometime later.

Regina is wrapped in a thick blanket laying upon another thick blanket by the roaring kitchen fire. She’d been lying there since she’d eaten her fourth hunk of chocolate about an hour before. She is still in her mud stained clothes, so is Robin.

Robin looks at Granny, at her lined face in the orange light of the fire, and she looks weary and sad and angry and a thousand other things. Granny stares at Regina curled up on the floor. Regina's knees are drawn up towards her chest in a way that makes her look very small. He waits.

"When she first married King Leopold," Granny says, "I don't know how old she was, but people called her the Child Queen." Granny tightens the grasp she's got on her own blanket and she rocks softly in her chair.

Robin seethes in useless anger, seethes at an old man long dead, a royal who'd taken what he would.

Granny lapses into silence and when they wake Regina for her final hunk of chocolate not long after she does not fight them. She is here with them.

Her hair has dried in wild curls, tangled and a mess, her face is clear of any powders or added pigment. She chews the mouthful tiredly, and when Robin reaches for her hand she interlaces their fingers in a way so natural that he doesn't notice it at first. She falls back asleep holding his hand as he sits beside her.

____________________________________________________

When next Robin wakes up there are birds singing outside the high windows of the kitchen and dawn is still a couple of hours away. There is no hustle bustle of people cooking breakfast, not yet, still too early.

He'd moved to a chair in the night. The feeling of her hand in his is still with him, held fondly in his thoughts.

He glances at Granny, still in her rocking chair, fast asleep, and then down to Regina, still curled in her nest of blankets.

There is a suspicious lump in those blankets though.

Robin leans forward and tugs on a corner of the blanket and raises it to see Regina with Roland in her arms. Roland blinks owlishly at him.

"Hi Papa," he whispers.

Robin smiles. "What are you doing, my boy?" he whispers just as quietly.

"Just sleeping," Roland answers, and turns to snuggle against Regina, his head resting against her breast.

Regina mumbles and shifts herself and the child. She's still asleep as she soothes Roland's wild bed head curls softly and places a kiss to the top of his head before settling. It's the most beautiful thing Robin has seen in a long, long time. These two people sleeping softly in the dawn light, both warm and safe.

He lets the blanket down gently, and it’s not a conscious decision, but this is the moment he decides he will be there too...one day. Safe and warm with his arms wrapped around Regina, keeping her safe. Her and Roland both. They could be a fine family.  
________________________________________________________________________

On the banks of the river Weeping as Regina sits in the thick mud, on the verge of dying, she has the intense urge to laugh.

Her supposed sister has power, yes, but no training.

She'll laugh about it later, she decides as her heart pounds and pounds so hard she thinks her chest might burst.

"Are you alright?" Robin asks with his hand on the back of her neck. Warm and solid and the magic rolling off of him is a painful shock, to go from absolute nothing, to that huge rush, it's too much. She dredges away from his touch and towards the gentle lapping of water in front of her. She doesn’t want to die in a mud pit like a diseased farm animal.

Robin’s hands do not stray far from her. Each touch is like lightning up her spine.

The water is warm and she stays there, panting, letting it lap at her. She can't stand, can't move at all. The green witch had tried to lay a trap in that headless body. She'd tied that corpse to one location and it was meant to pull Regina to that location using her own magic against her. The urge to laugh is even stronger now, the bitch had misspelled the runes of the spell.

The instant Regina's purple magic had touched the corpse, Regina could feel the pull of the spell, and fought desperately against it. She'd spent three seconds too long in the inbetween doing so, the place that is neither here nor there nor anywhere, it was painful there if you spent too long, and draining. In her panic, in her fight, she'd found a weak spot though, those three seconds crucial to their escape. A misspelled rune in the foundation of greenie's spell, and Regina had exploited it to its fullest extent, had torn away in a huge display of power, all the power that remained to her after what the inbetween claimed, used up in an instant.

Her whole body aches, her ribs, her fingers, and it is cold, the water is warm around her but it does nothing, the emptiness is too deep, she is cold right down to her blackened heart.

As if in response to that melodramatic thought, warm, strong arms wrap around her waist and tug her bodily up and it's Robin, his warmth and magic and his shining, untouched, red beating heart and the rush of it has her almost fainting. Her back is placed against his chest and she collapses against him, there is no physical fight left in her. She can feel every breath he takes, can feel the beating of his heart, and her eyes are closed but she can see it inside him, magic the same color as hers, pulsing under his skin, jumping in little stinging arcs from him to her and it's painful agony, searing, burning agony, it's everything for a moment, all she can feel, all she can comprehend.

She's being moved, jostled maybe, and she doesn't even know where she is, who she is, and she doesn't care at all, her whole world now is the muscled arm around her waist and the agony of magic rushing back into her body, that is everything and she can see inside him she can see how he is the man he is, and why, why he is the man he is- _a woman with dark hair and a smile like warm sun is pregnant with their child, a beautiful child, a son, and he met her when she was wearing lilac and it was the color he loved on her and she has dark eyes and their child has dark eyes and they are happy_

_but there is blood_

_and her final breath, a word, 'love' she says, and she says it when he dreams of her and she is wearing lilac bleeding and looks with dark eyes and says 'love'_

_agony has made him, to live without her has made him_

_love_

_the child cries and cries the child with dark eyes and_

Regina's face hits water, and it's all gone.

She splutters up, coughing and blinking her eyes, and those memories all in a rush are all gone and she's left with David in front of her. He’s got an aggravated look on his face.

"Regina," David says. Regina's eyes narrow and she’s trying to focus on the man who stays determinately blurry around the edges. "Hey, where'd we land? Why didn’t you take us to the castle? How far are we?"

She grips at Robin's arm around her waist and the phantom of the woman in lilac, Marian, is an after image on her retinas, bleeding bleeding, she shakes herself, the mud she can barely see on the bank around them is tinted red, blood pouring from her mouth with 'love', it's iron. "It's the river Weeping," Regina answers.

"How far from the castle are we?" David asks and what kind of King is he that he doesn't know his backyard.

"A mile, perhaps two.” She's surprised she was able to land them so close, proud of it actually. Her eyes close, her neck loose as the back of her head thumps back onto Robin's shoulder, and she realizes he's holding her entirely; her feet aren’t touching the bottom.

She's so tired.

"Which way?"

Regina thinks back to old maps, lit by candle light so long ago, a different world, a different time.

"Hey-" but whatever David is going to say is cut off as Robin snarls at him, his mouth inches from her ear.

"You touch her again I'll break your fingers," he growls.

She’s so tired. Robin’s strength is rushing to her. He’s saving her life. Does he even know? But it doesn’t hurt him. How can it not hurt him? It's all blurry and she can feel her mouth moving but doesn't know what she's saying and her brain is heavy and her body is heavy and god she's tired, more tired than she's ever been and Robin's magic is warm and his body is warm and she turns her head, burrows into his neck she thinks, inhales the smell of him.

And bloody Marian drifts away and the bloody banks of the Weeping drift away.

And then she's hallucinating.

And it isn't real.

She killed him.

He's dead.

_"Please don’t, please," she cries. She's sixteen on her wedding day, her birthday, he'd waited for her birthday._

_A white nightgown that she clenches between sweaty palms and they ply her from her chambers and giggle at her nerves and it's just nerves because he is her husband and he wouldn't hurt her and you'll see it's nice you'll like it, giggling giggling, but they aren't giggling when there's more blood then they'd expected and there's blood every night after and she cries herself to sleep and she must be making him like this, chastising her, he had never been like this with Queen Eva_

_"Please, please don’t," she whimpers and she looks up at him, and he puts a hand over her mouth and it hurts god it hurts and she's only eighteen and she's lost two pregnancies and is afraid he'll know about the latest, the blood staining her sheets and her hand maids will tell him. Rumple she whispers and clutches the sheets and the mattress is stained underneath and she cries Rumple and he comes and he changes the bedding with magic and soothes her hair from her face and looked sad in a way he'd never looked before and let her cry to him and he told her she would get her revenge_

_Snow calls her 'mother' but she is not her mother and she loses one more baby and he knew, she'd begun to show and she is worthless, useless, and god he is hurting her and she is sore and she cries and cries and she knows the guards are right outside his chamber doors and she cries but knows they won't come, no one will come because she is his wife and it is her duty and he is only doing his duty_

_"Send him someone else," whores, he treats them better than he does treats Regina, he uses them and pays them and then they get to go free, god how Regina wishes she could be free, he sleeps with whores when he is disgusted with Regina and he likes them more and more now that Regina is twenty-two and he likes them young and supple and tight and after the stillbirth she wasn't anymore he says_

_Her baby boy her last baby who'd been born blue and she'd cradled him and sobbed so deeply she thought she'd die and a part of her did die and the midwife tore the baby from her breast and Leopold raged at her and she crashed from the bed chasing the midwife and Leopold caught her and shook her so hard her head snapped back and forth HE'S DEAD REGINA and she had named him Joshua and he never lived outside of her body_

_There’s a hand over her mouth and she bucks wildly, she fights and fights and she is stronger now and she'll bite anything he puts in her mouth right off. There are voices, but they aren’t his, who-_

When she closes her teeth down it's the bitter taste of chocolate on her tongue and the nightmare fades and she's sweating and shaking and Leopold is dead, she'd killed him, he's dead now, she killed him.

She chews the chocolate and Granny swims into view, weathered face steady and soothing and familiar.

______

A nightmare.

A mouthful of chocolate.

__________

again

________

again

______

She blinks awake and stares at the fire still burning in the kitchen grate. She grips the edge of her blanket and pulls it up to her chin. Robin and Granny sleep on in their chairs as a noise clatters towards the door and she turns to look. 

"Roland," she whispers and beckons him closer. She extends a hand. "What are you doing up?"

He scampers over and falls to his knees on the blankets. He cradles her hand desperately.

"Are you alright?" he whispers.

"Of course, Roland," she assures him. She lies to him.

And he knows. His eyes flick to something above her, seemingly empty air and a frown mars his face, he asks again and he tries to sound stern.

She studies him in the flickering firelight. "What do you see?" she asks instead of answering.

Roland shakes his head so hard his curls fly. "Nothing," he mumbles. He looks down and plays with a ragged edge of the blanket until she raises his chin for him with a gentle tip of her finger.

"Roland," but she doesn't know what to say, and she looks at Robin, sleeping in the chair with his long legs out in front of him and she knows that he loves his son more than anything, as she loves Henry, "can you do magic?" she asks, quieter than before.

He jolts, squirming as he looks close to tears. He looks at his father again and then to her, but there's something like relief in his eyes and his shoulders are much too small for all the pain held in his little face. "Oh, Roland," she whispers and draws him down and hugs him, hard, he doesn't cry, but sniffles and snuggles against her. He worms his way under the blanket.

She rubs his back in circles and adjusts him so he's beside her instead of on her and shooshs softly until his sniffles fade away. "Your papa loves you very, very much, Roland," she tells him and can feel him nod under her chin.

"Tell me what you see?" she prods.

He snuggles into her side and Regina grits her teeth to keep her grunt from escaping. Her ribs throb. "It's all dark around you," he mumbles, "bad stuff like a pointy cloud and you're hurt, that's around you too."

Aura reading, which makes her wonder why he likes her so much, seeing as he can see her whole fractured being.

She rubs her cheek against his hair. "I am hurt, Roland," she finally tells him, "but you don't have to worry about me."

"I'm your brave knight," he tells her. He turns his head up to look at her, "and I can worry if I want."

A surprised chuckle huffs out of her. He looks so much like his father, little face hard with determination and so serious. "You are my brave knight," she agrees and gently places his head back down on her shoulder.

"Regina," he asks after a while, and Regina had thought him almost asleep, and she's almost there herself.

"Mmmm," she hums.

"I can do other things."

“You don’t need to show me, baby,” Regina assures him, but right after words are out of her mouth a cloud of blue lilac surrounds them. It smells like summer and sunshine. “Roland it’s beautiful,” she tells him and it’s true. His magic is pure and lovely. It’s light, but that doesn’t make it weak. 

He grins and looks embarrassed and proud, he’s blushing when Regina turns to kiss him on the cheek. 

“You shouldn’t have to hurt. I can fix it,” Roland says as the smoke wafts down and smooths straight into her bones. Regina makes a sharp sound of surprise as the blue lilac makes easy work of knitting her ribs together. The deep gouges in her arm heal under her mud and blood stained bandages, she wonders if there will even be scars. Bruises over every part of her fade, her headache disappears, and every sore and painful thing in her body is gone.

She exhales a deep sigh. Exhaustion mixed with absolute painfree bliss has her eyes closing in seconds. "Thank you," breathes. “Roland, thank you so much.”

Sleep is closing in on her fast, but she’s thinking she'll have to tell Robin that his son is the most powerful Sorcerer she's ever seen.

____________________________________________________

When Regina wakes she notices Roland’s absence immediately. She’s not particularly worried though and assumes Roland has gone off with his father.

The second thing she is aware of is the strong smell of bacon. When she opens one blinking eye she sees a pair of worn brown boots before her. She turns her head, opens both eyes, and squints up into the brightness of the morning. There's Granny, natural frown firmly in place, her lined face gruff as she looks down at Regina from her full standing height. "Up and at um, girl," Granny says as she nudges Regina's blanket clad side with the toe of her boot.

Regina swats at Granny's leg but the older woman is already stepping away. Regina sits up expecting pain and when it doesn't arrive has a disorienting moment before it all rushes back and she looks around for Roland with a hand coming down to where he'd been by her side and gripping the blanket.

"The boy went off with his father, a little over an hour ago," Granny calls from the table. There are people in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, and not being at all sly in watching every move Regina makes.

Mortification comes swiftly. Regina scampers up from her nest of blankets and is heading towards the doors when Granny's hand blocks her way, but does not touch her. If Regina ever had doubt of Granny's able bodiedness, they surely would now be put to rest, the old woman is fast.

"Breakfast," Granny says.

With a shake of her head Regina tries to sidestep her. "No, thank you," she says, but then Granny is touching her. A hand on Regina’s shoulder, but for just a moment there is the ghostly feeling of claws, a giant paw, weighted and heavy against Regina's shoulder and the presence and breath of a very unhappy wolf behind her. And then it's gone, and Granny turns her around.

"You're eating breakfast," Granny demands and doesn't wait for a reply as she guides Regina to the table and all but shoves her down at the bench.

Regina glares at her, and doesn't stop even when her stomach chooses that moment to rumble. Granny smirks at the sound.

Regina rolls her eyes as she looks down and lets hair fall on either side of her face. Her hair is a mess. She can see the knots and doesn’t at all look forward to brushing it.

"You're eating all of it," Granny announces as she slings a plate of bacon, eggs, and a hunk of crusty bread in front of Regina. Granny sits down on the bench beside her.

"Oh, am I?" Regina huffs. People telling Regina what to do, ordering her, is number one on the list of things that set her off, and a fight is building in her, in spite of the fact that she would have eaten all of it anyway.

Granny lets out a sigh, but Regina doesn't move the curtain of hair that blocks the old woman from her sight. There's a beat of silence before Granny is opening Regina's hand on the table top to place a fork there and then close her fingers around it. "I'd like to see you eat it all, Regina," Granny says. “You’ll need the energy, especially with what you went through yesterday.”

Regina tucks her hair behind her ear and looks, distrust in her face, at Granny. The old woman looks sad and Regina remembers, vaguely, Granny's face between the nightmares. Granny had seen her when she was most weak, and was now being kind. Regina can't abide pity.

But her stomach rumbles once more and she shakes it all away and begins to eat with a purse of her lips. All while ignoring the others in the kitchen and ignoring the old woman who looks and looks like she's trying to see something she's never seen.

Most of Regina’s food is gone when Granny speaks. "How old were you?"

Regina has a bite of food on its way to her mouth and it stays there, hovering over her plate. "What?" She’d heard the question, but she doesn’t understand.

"How old were you when you married King Leopold?"

"What does it matter?" Regina says and drops her fork to her plate with a clatter. She turns and glares at the old woman and the woman looks sad.

Regina hates pity.

"It matters," Granny growls.

They stare at each other. They glare at each other.

Regina looks away with a shrug and picks up her fork. "Sixteen," she says and shoves a bite of egg in her mouth.

"A child," Granny says, and her hand curls into a fist on the tabletop.

"I was a woman grown," Regina insists, and she had been, to say she was a child was to make her a victim and she wasn't that, couldn't be that, "already flowered."

Granny opens her mouth and Regina has no idea what she'll say but doesn't want to hear it, she shoves the last bite of toast in her mouth and shoots up from her seat.

"Thank you for breakfast," she says and then is gone, out the kitchen, through hallways and she does not cry. She will not cry.

____________________________________________________________

The sweet, clear sound of a child's laugh rings through the air. Regina breathes it in with relief as she walks towards the veranda that looks onto what was once the flower garden. It’s overrun now into a field of unkempt long grass and wildflowers.

And there is Roland, sunshine shining on him, smiling as he rides his father's shoulders, giggles only growing when Robin neighs.

"Faster! They're gonna get us!" Roland cries with one hand wrapped around a willowy stick and the other wrapped around Robin's head as Robin laughs. They’re pelting through the swaying grass.

Regina can see Friar Tuck chasing after them, moving far too slow to actually be trying to catch the father and son, an exaggerated expression of rage contorts the large man's face and he takes a huge breath and bellows, "There's no escape from me!"

Regina feels a smile tug at her lips as she rests her hands softly on the veranda railing, fingers curling against the sun warmed stone. The three quarter sleeves of her dress bare her arms. The long gashes that had been there, they, and the stitches that held them closed, are gone. Healed away. Long, thick scars remain where they were, but they don’t hurt.

After washing the caked mud, sweat, and tears from her person she’d needed to find Robin and Roland. Washing the red mud from her hair had, by far, been the longest task. She'd washed it and brushed it and wears the dark weight of it down about her shoulders now. She couldn't muster the will today to twist it into anything elaborate. She is too tired today to do anything but the bare minimum. Roland had healed her, but exhaustion still weighs her down. She'd be sleeping in her bed if she hadn't needed to see them both, the father and son, she has no real sense of what she plans to do or say, if she plans to do or say anything really. Roland's secret is his own and to spill it…Regina won't. But the need to see them both is very real.

A gust of wind rustles the grass and flings her hair in all directions. She raises a hand to try and tame it with her eyes never leaving the duo pelting closer and closer. Roland looks away from his pursuer and catches her eye. He bounces on his father's shoulders and waves with both hands, the end of the stick fwicking dangerously close to his eye.

"Regina!" he screams, as loud as his little lungs can manage.

Her smile grows and she raises both arms to wave right back.

Robin is looking at her too, smiling eyes suddenly turning mischievous. "Ser Roland!" he says, "We need-"

"Horsies don't talk," Roland says with all the affront a four year old can muster trapped in those three words.

Robin grins and jogs to the veranda. Roland's head bobs just above the veranda's railing, the boy could grab hold of it if he were a foot closer. "A Queen's token," Robin says, pantomime panting as if he's run miles and miles, and Friar Tuck has slowed considerably behind them, growling and snarling in such a theatrical way that Regina almost laughs, "for luck, my boy, ask the Queen for a token."

Roland forgets his insistence that horsies don't talk for a moment and gasps as nods. His big eyes implore as Robin bounces the boy. "Regina, could I borrow a token please?"

Regina laughs, it titters out of her without a thought. "Roland, I'm sorry, I have no token," the little boys face creases in deep worry, and turns to regard the man advancing so, so slowly. "But," Regina continues, and the boy looks at her again, smirking and he looks so much like his father.

Regina leans over the railing, putting all her weight against it as she extends her arms towards the child's face. She cups the back of his head and regards him seriously, as if this is no game, and he tries to bite back his grin. "For the bravest knight in the realm, I have something with the luck of a thousand tokens."

"What? What is it?" Roland is practically vibrating with his excitement.

Regina places her lips against his forehead softly, and her eyes close for a moment with the smell of wild flowers in her nose and the feel of sunshine on her skin, and sweet Roland had healed her, all her pain gone away and she is more grateful than a mere thank you can express, but she is saddened too, the pain had been her burden, what is life without it? What is her life without pain?

When she pulls away Roland has his eyes closed too, a soft, content expression on his cherubic face. He blinks slowly, as if he's waking from a nap and a smile grows on his face.

"A Queens kiss is lucky?" Roland asks. His faces scrunches up, jealousy on that little face. "Did you have to kiss all your knights, Regina?"

Regina laughs and decides that the fact she did kiss a fair amount of knights is not something the child needs to know, and the whispered thought that neither does his father goes ignored. "No dear, you're the only one," she tells him.

A very nearby growl has Roland spinning away from her and she retracts her hands back to the railing.

Roland brandishes the stick at Friar Tuck. "I got a kiss from the Queen!" Roland says with his chest puffed out, "and you're nothing but a mean smelly ogre and she'd never kiss you!"

With that Robin charges forward with a mighty neigh. Roland thwacks the stick at Friar Tuck who bats it away while laughing, thoroughly ruining his ogre impression.

Regina shakes her head and traverses over to the steps and descends into the long grass. Her hands glide over the tops as she approaches them. She stops a few feet away from where Friar Tuck now rolls on the ground. He’s reciting quite the deathbed speech.

Roland pumps his hands in the air at his victory. He’s squirming so much that Robin swings him off his shoulders.

He skips over to her. "Did you see?" he asks.

_"Did you see?" Henry asks, and he is so proud and yes of course she'd seen._

Regina blinks and crosses her arms. A long beat goes by and she hopes the child doesn’t notice. "Yes, dear,” she finally answers him “you defeated that mighty foe admirably."

Roland smiles and nods as he turns to thwacks at some long grass.

"Your Majesty," Robin says. Regina takes a breath before turning her gaze to Robin as her arms cross tighter across her chest. "We wished to see you safety awake, but-"

"No need," she says with a shake her head.

His head tilts.

Regina makes an effort to uncross her arms and she looks up at him. "I wanted to thank you. You carried me two miles, thank you."

He shrugs, like it is nothing, like it is anything anyone would do but Regina knows it isn't. She is the Evil Queen and anyone else would have let her faint in the river Weeping and drown and good riddance, but he had carried her, and 'You touch her again I'll break your fingers.'

"Well, it's not as if you're heavy," he says and laughs.

Regina narrows her eyes and hums lowly.

"Because you aren't, heavy, I mean," he says in a rush and with a smile as he observes her.

"So if I weighed a little more you'd have dropped me?" she says. She’s teasing and he responds in kind with a shocked gasp as he fidgets.

Roland gasps and whips around from the imaginary foe he was sword fighting. "Papa!"

"No!" Robin cries with a smile down at Roland. He shakes his head and turns to look back at Regina, his gaze turns softer and more serious as he takes a step forward. “I would carry you anywhere."

Her breath catches for a moment. The way he's looking at her, the way he stands so close, it all goes rushing to her head. Everything in her is telling her to step away. She can’t trust him, she can’t trust anyone.

Roland tugs on her skirt and when she looks down at him he has his hands upraised with grabby hands that say 'up, up' in any realm. The way she sweeps down and picks him up is instinct. She places him on her hip and it's only after he's settled that she realizes what she's done.

She turns to Robin, waiting for the anger. "I'm sorry," she starts to say as the little boy has his arms wrapped around her neck. She's bending right back down to put him on his feet when Robin grabs her shoulder with a gentle grip.

"You make quite the pair. Is he too heavy?” Robin asks.

Regina reaches up to tuck hair behind her ear as she shakes her head. It’s her scarred arm. What had been open wounds are closed now and she can see the very moment Robin realizes. His eyes widen and his mouth opens in a soft oh. He reaches for her so, so softly. He wraps his grip around her wrist with his fingertips at her pulse point and he straightens out her arm between them. He trails fingertips up the thick raised scars that look years and years old.

His touch has goosebumps rising all over, and she actually shudders an exhale that has embarrassment coloring her cheeks. He raises his gaze from the scars to her face then, and Regina can see the very moment his blood turns hot in reaction to her.

"Are you even listening?!" Friar Tuck cries from the ground, glaring at them, he's been going through his death throes the entire time, "I am dying here!"

Robin takes a miniscule step back, and trails his fingers down her arm before releasing her. “So sorry, Tuck,” he laughs.

"Regina, will you eat with us?" Roland asks. He’s giggling as he turns away from Friar Tuck and he's kicking his little legs and he's almost too big for Regina to carry at all.

Her mouth opens and nothing comes out.

She eats alone.

Always.

And to be close to Robin is a terrible mistake. Even now she’s obviously more affected than he is by whatever just travelled between them. She feels flustered and suddenly flushed in a way she hasn’t felt since….since she was a girl in the throws of her first, and only, romance. 

"You're more than welcome," Robin says with a smile.

"I," -she doesn't want to eat alone, she is so sick of being alone- "if I'm welcome," she answers and hates that her trepidation is audible.

Friar Tuck climbs up, dusts off his pants and ushers them all back across the flower garden.

"Vanquishing that knight has made me hungry!" he booms.

"Nuhuh!" Roland cries immediately. Regina shuffles him up and secures him better on her hip. The boy spins his face to her. "I won," he says.

Regina nods. "Yes, dear, you most certainly did."

"See," Roland says as he pokes at Friar Tuck with the stick, "most certaintwly," he echoes with a face that says 'so there' and Regina laughs and kisses his cheek.

___________________________________________________

She's clutching Roland like a security blanket when they approach the table. This is a mistake, she isn't welcome.

The men look up, look at Roland in her arms, and then at Robin and at his smile and at Robin’s nod they become a little less wary looking, but it doesn't leave their eyes completely.

Nerves run up and down Regina's spine as she sets Roland down. The boy drags her by the hand to empty seats and tucks into her side the moment they sit.

The table is quiet and she doesn't look up until she feels Robin take a seat on her other side.

He smiles at her and slowly conversations start, but no one talks to her except Roland and Robin.

"I don't like um," the little boy says later with a pout. He’s pushing his carrots around sullenly with his fork. 

Robin sighs and leans forward over the table to look at Roland from around Regina. "You have to eat them.” It sounds like an argument they've had many times before.

"Why don't you like them?" Regina asks. She has more than enough experience dealing with picky little boys.

"They're yucky!" he exclaims vehemently.

Regina picks one off his plate and pops it in her mouth. "Bunnies like them," she says and chews with a shrug.

"I am not a bunny!" Roland huffs with his little arms crossed indignantly.

She laughs. He’s at such a beautiful age. She leans down to him and wraps her arm around his shoulders. "Do you want to know a secret?”

The secretive tone of her voice is enough for him to immediately be interested, he nods excitedly. He listens like the existence of the world is at stake. Regina lets her eyes sweep over the room in an obvious show before she hunkers down close to him.

"Only grown ups are meant to know this, Roland. Have you ever seen a bunny run? Are they fast?”

“So fast!” Roland confirms.

Regina nods solemnly. “Bunnies are so fast because they eat carrots, it's why they can jump so high too.” When she reaches for another carrot off his plate he blocks her fork.

"Does it only work for bunnies?" he whispers.

Her eyes widen in pantomime realization. "Well your Papa is fast isn't he?"

The little boy nods emphatically and his whole face crumples as he tries to work out the logistics here. A moment later his mouth drops open. "It must be because he eats carrots!" he cries with a gasp. "Papa!?" he asks as he calmors up onto his knees and then in her lap to be closer to Robin. His back hits the table and silverware rattles. "Why didn't you say carrots made you fast?"

Robin looks from his son to Regina and she smiles weakly. It was good fun when she was whispering in Roland’s ear, but now she sees she’s lying to the child, but when does a game turn into a lie-

"I'm sorry, my boy,” Robin whispers in response. He leans forwards and all three of their faces are all very close together now. “I couldn't let slip the secret."

"Next time there's a secret you gotta tell me," Roland says and narrows his eyes at his father before shuffling back to his own seat and shoveling carrots in his mouth with a tiny grimace, his expression hard and unyielding.

_______________________________________________________

Lunch has left her warm and as happy as she's able to be. Roland is not her son, but he brings so much joy.

She’s relaxed now in one of the numerous libraries of the castle. She’s alone with the moth eaten books, so many of their inks faded, lost to time, she's surrounded by the smell of the old books. She’s is not in pain. The tide has rushed out, grief's push and pull leaving her wading content in the shallows. For today.

The sound of the old rusted hinges of the door surprises her from her thoughts and she frowns as she turns to see who has entered. The frown only grows as she sees the other woman. "Snow," Regina says. She’s almost exasperated enough to puff herself into the highest tower in the castle, just to escape, but she’s still gaining back her magical strength and she shouldn’t waste if on such a petty thing.

"Hi, Regina," Snow says with tentative smile on her face as she walks closer.

Regina keeps the open book in her hands and does not turn fully from the shelves. She narrows her gaze at Snow. "What do you want?" she asks. The girl had always held no interest in this library, filled with books on history and medicine and a fair few hidden magic tomes. Snow had always sequestered herself away with the romance and adventure to be found in the east wing library.

"I wanted to see you," Snow says and picks a book from the shelf at random, but does not open it; she hugs it against her chest, like a shield.

"Why?" Regina stretches out.

Snow shrugs. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Regina says and turns away.

Snow shakes her head. “It feels like we’re taking ten steps back. You can’t even stand to look at me?”

“I’m not sure what kind of relationship you thought we had in Storybrooke-”

"Regina," Snow sighs, such a disappointed sound.

It enrages Regina so suddenly that it takes her breath away. Sighing sighing, always sighing, disappointed in Regina, the stupid girl was just like her lecherous father, always sighing.

Regina slams the book to the floor and rounds on Snow. "Do you mean us to be friends?” She snaps. “What do you want from me? You have no need to be here, you inflict your presence when it is not needed. I am your ally because of my child, my son." Snow flinches at that, the acid tone, because Snow had never been Regina's child.

"I hate you," Regina says. She hates Snow White, bitterly and truly, Mary Margaret was another woman in another world, but this is Snow, standing in her father's castle, the hatred grew in this castle once, and it's seeping back, Regina's voice had been a hiss, and her hands gesture in front of her like she is throttling something.

Snow swallows and shakes her head with desperation in her eyes. Her face twists up. "You didn't always," she says as she holds back tears. “We could have that back, Regina. We could heal.”

It's like a slap in the face and Regina steps back. She guffaws a broken sound. “I was your slave and your father’s whore. I would rather die than go back there.”

Snow flinches like it’s not the truth.

Regina leans a hand against the shelves as her shoulder thuds against the heavy books. She’s very suddenly exhausted. "Leave," she growls.

Snow does. She whirls away with her soft skirts flowing after her. Even and calm strides carry her towards the doors, but in the hall Regina can hear the pitter patter of her running.

And the contentment is gone.

_________________________________________________

Robin wakes in the kitchen to dawn light drifting in through the windows and the gentle clatter of meal prep. It’s a soft morning and he takes a moment to smile down at Regina and Roland. Roland is already awake and entertaining himself quietly beside the fireplace. 

The soft morning is shattered when Little John and Friar Tuck run into the kitchen. They are both panting as they hurriedly slow their steps and cast desperate eyes at Robin. Robin is out of his seat in a second. He jogs to meet them by the door and sends a worried gaze over his shoulder at the sleeping woman and the boy beside her.

"What's happened?" he asks with steadying hands reaching for John, who seems the most affected. John’s face is bright red in anger and he throws a heated gaze to Tuck.

"It's Tom," Tuck answers for them. He cringes. “His mind is addled by drink, he's a good man, it's the drink that does I-"

Robin cuts him off, "Where?"

Roland tugs on the leg of Robin's trousers and Robin picks him up without a thought and with hardly even a glance. "I asked where, Tuck!"

The Friar cringes again. John pulls on Robin's arm and they've taken two steps before Robin remembers Regina. He half turns, eyes on her, on the even fall and rise of her chest and the hair spread around her face, black like night, eyelashes dark against her smooth cheek.

"I've got her," Granny says from the rocking chair. Robin nods and leaves.

It's nearly a five minutes walk through the castle before they come upon Tom. Tom with a sword in hand. He’s smacking the pommel against a door while screaming obscenities and threats. He's got vomit on his shirt, and in his hair, and it's only when Roland shies away with a whimper that Robin remembers he's even there, he'd been so blinded by urgency and growing anger. Robin passes Roland to Friar Tuck, and they back away together.

Robin waits for the pair to round the bend, and then he surges forward.

"You whore!" Tom is screaming, "You nasty whore, I'll kill you, I'll fu-"

Robin grabs his shoulder, turns him and slams a fist into his gut. The sword clatters out of Tom's hand as he falls to his knees.

Tom looks up at him with a snarl. "Robin?" he groans. Tom smells like piss.

The door behind Robin creaks open, half a face looking out. It’s the frightened face of a young woman with tear tracks running down her cheeks.

Tom sees the open door and stumbles to his feet. Rage twists his features as he pushes Robin out of the way and puts all his weight against the door. It bursts open and a shrill scream comes from the girl. Tom steps after her as she scuttles back. Robin and John grab him, drag him back into the hall and he's raging and screaming and finally John clocks him straight in the face.

"What do you think you're doing," John growls.

Tom has a cupped hand under his chin, he’s trying and failing to catch the blood leaking from his nose.

Tom stumbles to the right and gestures at the door that has been slammed closed; the girls sobbing can be heard through it. "Nasty bitch, teasing me all night," he stumbles to the left, "smiling, giggling like, and-” then it's a drunken ramble and Robin turns his head away in disgust.

Robin grabs the lapels of Tom's jacket, shakes him, and then throws him away. "Clean yourself up," he orders. He stoops and picks up Tom’s sword. "Leave the girl alone," he growls.

"Can't order me!" Tom yells.

Robin smacks the flat of the blade against Tom's leg and the man crumples. Robin shoots a hand forward and grabs a handful of Tom’s hair. Robin’s nose crinkles at the smell. "If you weren't Tuck's brother, you'd be a beaten and bloody mess on the floor," Robin snarls. Tom tries to shrink back. “Leave the girl alone or I’ll change my mind.” He throws Tom away by the grip on his hair.

Tom heaves himself up as he’s grumbling unheard threats. He looks back glaring, but leaves the hall in a drunken shamble.

John and Robin share a glance. With a shake of his head and a sigh Robin passes John the blade. He goes to search for wherever Friar Tuck has taken Roland.

________________________________________________________

"You have to do something about him," Robin says.

"It's the drink," Tom starts and stops when Robin raises a hand.

"He could have killed that girl," Robin reminds him. “He still could.”

Embarrassment colors Tuck's cheeks, and his head dips in shame. "He wouldn't do that," he says with a shake of his head, and perhaps he wouldn't have killed her, but there are other things he would have done, and bile rises in Robin's throat at the thought.

Robin lets out a deep breath and studies the other man with a frown. "I'll not have him around my boy," he says finally, and means it. This violence has gone unchecked for too long.

"I understand," Tuck says. He nods and looks up to the sky as if praying to his god for strength.

"Tuck," Roland says as he skips between them. He’s holding a frog in his hands smiling a wide smile. Tuck looks down at him and smiles in return, but it is sad.

________________________________________________________

"Roland," Friar Tuck says much later. They’ve been spending the morning having a bit of a walk around the grounds. They’re in a meadow of sorts now. The Friar is drifting his hand to graze over the long grass.

"Yeah?" Roland responds and looks up.

Friar Tuck leaps towards him with his hands raised in tickling position. It’s a game they’ve played since Roland was very young. Roland's eyes widen immediately and he runs to his father. "Papa! Papa!"

Roland is running as fast as his little legs can go, giggling madly as he runs away from Friar Tuck's wiggling fingers.

Robin smiles and sweeps the boy smoothly up and places him on his shoulders. Roland's hands fist in Robin's hair, hard enough to hurt and Robin loosens one hand from around his son's ankle to ease his fingers. "Easy now," he laughs, "and what is this?" he asks, looking at Tuck.

"I'm an ogre," he says, calmly, and then glances up at Roland. "And I'm gonna get him!" he cries, and lunges even as Robin leaps out of his reach.

"No, Papa, don't let him get me!" Roland's hands are once more in Robin's hair, pulling at it.

"What kind of steed would allow their rider to face such danger?" Robin proclaims as he tickles at Roland's feet and begins to bound away. "You are a mighty knight, do not be afraid," Robin reminds Roland with a wry grin. The notion that his son, the son of a thief, an honorable one, but a thief nonetheless, would strive so hard for knighthood is a funny one. Robin reaches out and tears a dead branch off a young tree and starts running as he reaches over his head and hands the stick to Roland. Robin neighs, long and loud and Roland almost falls off his shoulders he's giggling so hard.

Robin let's Tuck get closer, then spurts forward in a burst of speed, he does it twice. Roland's laughing cries of, "Go horsie, Go! Faster!" are a desperate plea as he kicks his heels into his father's chest.

"Regina!" the boy calls and begins to bounce on Robin’s shoulders. 

Robin turns his eyes up and almost immediately trips on a clump of dirt. He stumbles but steadies fast. Regina is standing above them on a veranda with both arms raised. A smile stretches across her face and as her long hair plays madly in the wind. She's standing straight, a spark to her eyes, she looks healthy in a way she hasn't since he's known her. He feared for her life only yesterday, as she lay in his arms soaking wet and crumpled, unnaturally pale and listless. The sight of her looking so healthy has a smile on his face and the thought that she used magic to achieve this crosses his mind, and he's grateful.

Robin smirks and runs towards the veranda. "Ser Roland," he cries. "We need-”

"Horsies don't talk!” Roland cuts him off.

"A Queen's token," Robin continues and bounces the boy on his shoulders. Robin looks up at Regina, his eyes lingering on the dark fabric of her dress swishing about her legs in the wind. "For luck, my boy, ask the Queen for a token."

"Regina, could I borrow a token please?" Roland begs, and Robin bounces him again.

Regina laughs, a tinkling, light sound, a beautiful sound, more girlish than Robin would have thought. "Roland, I'm sorry, I have no token, but-" 

Robin's smile falters as she leans over the railing. She’s talking to the boy and cupping his face in her hands. The way she’s leaning has her breasts almost spilling out of the low cut of her dress. Robin gulps and studies the supple flesh, soft and smooth. Robin makes an effort to close his mouth as his gaze travels up to her stretched neck as she places the most gentle of kisses on Roland’s forehead.

She’s beautiful, he thinks. For the briefest of moments, standing there in sunshine, he imagines her back arched and neck straining as she screams his name. He imagines her spread out under him, panting and writhing, with his hands in her long dark hair. He imagines how the heat of her would feel wrapped all around him, wet and tight and she’d be moaning and the thought is so sexual and so instant that he has to shake his head and slam his eyes shut to block sight of her.

"-kiss all your knights, Regina?" he hears Roland say.

She laughs again, that girlish sound and Robin keeps his eyes shut, taking a deep breath as he wills himself to calm down. He thought he was past the age where such inappropriate thoughts come on unbidden.

"No, dear, you're the only one," she answers.

Friar Tuck is growling just a little way away and when Robin feels Roland turning on his shoulders he happily accepts the distraction. Robin opens his eyes as he spins around, and Roland points his stick in front of them. "I got a kiss from the Queen," he bellows, "and you're nothing but a mean smelly ogre, and she'd never kiss you!"

Robin neighs and whisks the boy forward. His heart is still beating madly and he can't get the picture completely out of his brain, the picture of her undone, even as Roland gets a little too involved in the game and hits Friar Tuck right along the top of his head. Friar Tuck lands on the ground at the blow, but doesn't look too hurt; he's pondering loudly why life is so unfair to ogre kind.

Roland is squirming so much that Robin reaches up and slides him down. Robin watches as Roland scampers over to Regina and she smiles at him. "Did you see?" Roland says with his chest puffed out like he's a real champion.

Her arms cross and her smile gets strained but she nods. "Yes, dear," she says, "you defeated that mighty foe admirably."

Somehow the boy looks even more proud after her praise. He turns away to jump and swipe at some grass with his stick while making swishing sword sounds under his breath.

"Your Majesty," Robin says and takes a step towards her. “We wished to see you safely awake, but-"

She shakes her head with a hand raised to stop him. She has such graceful hands.

"No need," she says. "I wanted to thank you.” She looks so surprised. “You carried me two miles, thank you."

Robin shakes his head with a small shrug. "Well," he starts, and knows whatever is next coming out of his mouth will make him look like an idiot, but he can't seem to stop himself, "it's not as if you're heavy.” He cringes and laughs.

Her eyes narrow and she leans her head back, she hums, and he takes it as a question. "Because you aren't," he clarifies, "heavy I mean."

"So if I weighed a little more you'd have dropped me?" she asks with her eyebrows raised and he can see she's teasing. The idea of it makes him excited in a way he doesn’t stop to decipher.

"Papa!" Roland gasps and whirls around with the stick pointed up as if he might hit Robin with it.

"No," Robin reassures him and hopes he doesn’t need to take the boy’s stick away. When he looks back to Regina he wants her desperately to know the truth of it. He steps closer to her. “I would carry you anywhere,” he says in a quiet tone that he hopes Roland won’t hear. Her breath catches in a moment so subtle Robin thinks he might have imagined it. 

She turns away then and misses the way Robin’s gaze drops down to her lips. She turns away to look down at Roland tugging on her skirt. The boy has his hands upraised with grabby palms and immediately she bends down and grabs him. She rises with him on her hip, planted there like he's always been there, and the boy looks content with his arms wrapped around her neck.

Fear and dread crawl up her face and she flinches back from Robin like she expects to be yelled at. The expression on her face deeply troubles him. She should never be afraid of him. "I'm sorry," she says and makes it obvious she means to put the boy back down. Roland is tightening his arms around her neck and throws a pleading look at Robin.

Robin reaches out and pushes her shoulder until she straightens. "You make quite the pair," he says, and it's the truest thing he's said all day. She looks healthy, but just yesterday he is fairly positive she’d nearly died in his arms. “Is he too heavy?”

She shakes her head as the wind comes and blows her hair all around. She’s left it down and glorious, it’s long enough that it when it whips about little stinging strands reach Robin. He wishes he could run his hands through it. In his day dreaming he nearly misses it. Her arm. Robin’s eyes widen and he steps even closer. He reaches out to grasp her wrist and bare her arm to his scrutiny. The intensely awful wounds on her forearm have closed, terrible scars are left in their wake. The skin is raised, but the scars are stark white against her skin tone, like it has been years since they healed. Robin cannot hide his wonder as he runs fingertips up these new marks decorating her body. When she tenses and breathes out a stuttering breath Robin thinks perhaps he’s caught her in a ticklish place. An apology is on his tongue as he looks up to meet her eyes.

His apology melts away and he’s suddenly fuck-struck by the look in her eyes. Her entire face is flushed and her lips part softly as she looks up at him. 

"Are you even listening?" Tuck says and breaks up the heady moment. The man has his arms crossed as he lays on his back in the dirt. "I am dying here!" he cries out. Robin knows he does put some creativity into his Ogre death speeches, but he can only laugh and wave Tuck off with a grin. His heart is pounding.

“So sorry, Tuck!” Robin says.

"Regina, will you eat with us?" Roland asks.

Regina's mouth opens with her eyes locked on the little boy on her hip. She seems speechless. There's trepidation in her eyes and a heavy dose of fear, but longing also as she looks at the child. Does Robin know her well enough to know her moods by just the look in her eye?

Robin has no memory of her ever eating with anyone, she is always alone, walls impenetrable, chin held high. Such a life must be so lonely. 

"You're more than welcome," Robin tells her. He smiles at her, trying to cajole.

She tightens her hold on the boy. "I," she stutters and looks him up and down ."If I'm welcome," she finishes with an attempt to smile. It’s a hopeful thing that nearly falters before it's grown.

Robin looks to Tuck, and the other man is studying him, and Regina, looking at them like some ancient tome unearthed for the first time, and Robin doesn't quite glare, but it's hard look, and it's unmovable and Tuck has been Robin's friend for long years, but Regina is…

Robin doesn't know what Regina is yet, but she is something, something important and Tuck seems to understand this. He stands, claps dust from himself and smiles and Robin is relieved.

_____________________________________________________

Roland is squirming in bed. He’s been kicking at his blanket and grumbling for over an hour. Robin wonders what Regina would say to make the boy sleep. Her trick with the carrots still brings a smile to his face.

"My boy," Robin sighs and flops himself down across the bed with Roland's kicking legs trapped under his weight.

"Papa," Roland whines as he’s pushing at Robin till he rolls over.

"Go to sleep.” Robin rubs a hand across his face and wonders why he always finds himself the most tired exactly when Roland doesn’t want to go to bed..

"I’m not tired." The boy pouts, but his eyes are drooping. He's a stubborn child, which, during the daylight hours, thoroughly delights Robin, but at three hours past Roland's bedtime, not quite as much.

"I think you are actually," Robin says softly and shuffles up the bed to hug Roland against his side. "Come on now. It's easy, close your eyes."

Roland sighs an exasperated sound, as if he’s dealing with someone particularly obtuse. In response Robin jostles him softly, and they both bounce on the bed. "Are you doing it?" Robin asks with his whole face scrunched up to keep his eyes closed. "Won't work with your eyes open."

"Papa," the boy says with a different tone than the whining of before. His voice is hesitant.

"What is it?" Robin asks as he opens his eyes and looks down at the boy; Roland is playing with a loose thread on his nightshirt.

"What did Mama look like?"

Robin smiles and pulls the boy in tighter. It’s been a couple months since Roland had last asked about his mother. Robin has the same answer as before. "Your Mama was beautiful, Roland. She had dark hair, just like you." Robin rubs the boys back softly and tucks his chin against the curls Marian gave him. He pokes Roland in the stomach until the child giggles. “And you have her eyes. She had a smile like sunshine, Roland, it brightened whole rooms."

Roland shuffles and tucks his head harder against Robin. Robin can tell something is weighing Roland down. "Roland, what is it?" he asks.

Roland takes a breath with one shoulder raised in a shrug. "Does Regina look like Mama?" he asks.

Robin blinks and his face falls.

He's speechless for a moment, before he stumbles through something that resembles coherency. "Why do you ask?"

Roland shrugs again and fidgets. "Regina has hair like mine, it's dark and it's curly. Regina has the prettiest smile, even the small ones." Roland looks up, his chin against Robin's chest and is looking introspective about it all. "Regina's beautiful, you said Mama was beautiful."

Thoughts are racing through Robin's head. "Yes, your Mama was beautiful," he responds. She had been, she was, so beautiful that Robin could spend hours looking at her face. Everything about her had been beautiful, her kind eyes, soft eyes, her gentle hands, her lips, upturned in a smile always, she was even beautiful when angry, nose curled up in a snarl, gesticulating wildly and usually throwing things at him.

She'd even looked beautiful as she lay dying.

"So does she?" Roland asks and tucks his head back down with a yawn.

"Yes, Roland, she does a bit." And she does. Regina has long, luscious dark hair, as Marian had. Roland used to squeeze long tendrils of it in his baby fist. Regina has large, dark, and expressive eyes, as Marian had. Robin used to joke that he could fall straight into Marian's eyes. Even the full lips that Robin had so loved in Marian, the same feature is there on Regina's lovely face.

But Marian had been a happy soul, easy in her friendship and her love, she'd escaped her hardships without bitterness and had laughed easily and long.

Regina, she is an entirely different sort of soul. Sad and angry, fighting tooth and nail for something better, the air around her feels tortured, her pain her companion even when she smiles.

The comparison sits heavily in Robin's gut, even as Roland drifts away to sleep, a boneless and heavy mass on Robin's chest.

_____________________________________________________________

Robin tries to tell himself that this is in no way untoward or lecherous, but can't convince himself.

He walks quietly down the hall to the Queen's chambers. His boots had been thrown on hastily and he is still in his loose and comfortable sleepwear. He doesn't knock as he slides through the door that he opens without a sound.

He just needs to see her, that's all.

He wants to see her, but to speak to her is something he's not ready for. Roland's voice is spinning through his mind, 'Does Regina look like Mama?'

Robin stops when he sees her bed empty. He looks around fervently with something tight gripping his chest until he exhales when he sees her curled against the balcony railing. Hurried steps carry him towards her. Has she fallen? Is she hurt? When he gets close enough though it appears she’s only fallen asleep. Asleep with one arm dangling through the rails. Concern grows in him and marks his brow as he kneels beside her. He pushes the heavy weight of her hair over her shoulder.

"Regina?" he whispers.

Looking at her now he could answer Roland once and for all, Regina looks like Regina, and no one else.

Robin glances back to the bed and bites his lip as he decides to take the chance, he can’t leave her on the floor, he can’t. He gathers her up in his arms and stands. He waits a beat to see if she'll wake and when all she does is turn her head in towards his chest he breathes relief in. He steps carefully over to the bed and lays her down over the covers. When he pulls back her eyes are half open and look up at him with a sleep filled gaze. A soft smile grows on her lips and it transforms her whole face.

“Robin,” she mumbles his name. Her hand wraps around his wrist on the bedspread.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Robin says softly. 

Her eyes blink closed. Robin wonders if she’ll even remember the encounter as her face relaxes again with a deep exhale and she's still and peaceful on the bed.

He leans over her and studies her face. His gaze lingers on her slightly parted lips before he kisses her forehead softly.

__________________________________________________________

Two mirrors had hung in the library. They were a relic of the time when a man was trapped within them and would flicker all about the castle, sometimes visible, mostly not, to spy on the Queen he served. Regina broke them both in a fit of useless rage after Snow had left the library. She’d thrown a heavy book at one and the other had been shattered with a burst of magic Regina hadn’t even decided to let loose. She leaves the shards of reflective glass on the stone floor and retreats to her chambers.

She’s trapped in this world. She’s trapped with memories that become more insistent every day. Memories of Snow are wafting through Regina's mind. Every inch of this castle is tied to the insufferable brat. This castle housed the Evil Queen, but before that it housed a nursemaid in silk and diamonds.

Snow been a beautiful child, Regina remembers, and the girl had known it, had known she was her father’s most prized.

Her thoughts are swirling all together until hardly anything makes sense.

The girl was always tripping, Regina remembers as she slams her chamber doors shut, always tripping all the time, on the hem of her dresses, on her own feet, and whenever a new injury was catalogued to the King it was somehow Regina's fault, for not watching the girl well enough, and the girl had cried every time, no matter how small or insignificant the wound.

The girl was always eating too, snatching at cakes and pies, anything with sugar gone as soon as her eyes lay on it, and she had terrible stomach aches, every time she indulged, and Regina would have to soothe them, would have to rub the girls back, and Snow would say 'sing?' and there was no choice and Regina sang whatever lullaby had piqued the girls fancy. 'You have such a beautiful voice,' the girl would sigh and smile, smile lovingly up at her step-mother and did she really never know the hatred that grew behind those songs?

Snow wanted Regina's companionship daily, until Snow turned sixteen, when she turned aloof and perhaps she'd begun to understand her step-mother's love was not real, or perhaps she'd begun to feel awkward calling a woman who looked young enough to be her sister 'mother', and then she was too old anyway for a mother, any mother, and Regina had still not produced a male heir and so Snow was tutored in how to rule the kingdom by a swath of tutors in dowdy dark clothes and ridiculous hats.

A thousand days run together for Regina as she stands, shaking and sad and so incredibly angry, Snow growing from a child to a woman in the span of a second as Regina stands in the center of her chambers, looks blankly around herself, head tilted and she's shaking her head. 

She'd buried all this, under evil and madness and long dull years in Storybrooke, and it's inconvenient that all her issues regarding her marriage are popping up now, inconvenient too little a word, she'd like to push it all back down, but it won't go. It was so much easier in Storybrooke with Henry, Henry kept her mind off bad things that happened long ago, the minutiae of everyday life had cradled her, Storybrooke, a prison and a comfort, where Snow was Mary Margret and Regina the Mayor, Regina could let it slip more easily from her mind there, but here, here there is no escape, no escape and no Henry.

Regina strides over to her closet quickly. She rummages through it, throwing clothes worth a fortune, till she finds a large and heavy jewelry box covered in dust in the farthest corner.

She carries the box to the balcony and sets it down beside her when she sits on the stone. There's a sharp wind climbing up the tower and it whips at her and throws stinging tendrils of her hair against her face, stinging against her cheeks. Regina opens the box and looks at ten years worth of baubles and shiny trinkets. Every birthday since her sixteenth till Leopold's murder, every anniversary of the day she'd stood in the sept and had her virtue sold, was celebrated with an expensive gift of gold and stones. She has not touched them in....she doesn’t know how long.

A hand hovers over the gold and silver and jewels as Regina lets out a long and deep breath. She finds herself nearly afraid to touch them, as if to touch them would give life to Leopold’s ghost. Leopold always smiled and helped her put the necklaces, tight like a collar against her throat, suffocating her, around her neck, or the earrings, too big and heavy and they hurt her ears, he'd pin them in, and Snow always sighed and was jealous and said how lucky Regina was.

how lucky.

Regina picks a pair of earrings from the box, plucking them up with sudden urgency. Leopold is dead and these chains have been in her closet long enough. The earrings she chooses are rubies as big as her nose and they are gaudy and too large and this had been a gift for her twenty first birthday. She’d been pregnant with her last baby, her stomach was already curving gently outward and Snow giggled and called her fat. Snow would be leaving the next day, an unintentional birthday present that only fueled Regina's delight further. A stirring of happiness had been in Regina's belly that night, because she'd never carried a baby so long, and Leopold told her how glad he was and he made plans to surprise Snow when the baby was born, when Snow returned from her latest adventure to the coast with the daughter of some wealthy Lord, he planned to show her the nursery and the baby brother all in one go and Regina had dreamed of a future that night and it had not been a nightmare.

But the baby did not live.

Regina closes her fingers around the stones and breathes deeply. These were her chains, a prison made of gold, and all she ever wanted was to be free. Her eyes drift shut and she's focusing her magic on her hands and they glow, bright shining purple shooting between her fingers. The light fades and she huffs out a breath as she opens her palms. Two little song birds are sitting in her palms.

They cock their little heads with their beady bright eyes looking up at her before they titter out a song. Regina lets out a breath that could be laughter as they flex their shining ruby wings and erupt from her palm with their golden legs curled under them.

Regina picks up a necklace next, and repeats it all the same. When she opens her hands it is a shining silver songbird with turquoise tipped feathers that looks up at her. He echoes his brother's melancholy song before he flies away.

She goes on and on until the jewelry box is empty and a good number of new species of bird has entered the world. She's used more magic then she should have. A part of her feels silly.

A good sleep and a fine meal will have her almost fine. She welcomes the ache anyway, the pain, she deserves pain. She can't even find the strength to rise. She slumps forward and stares out at the landscape beyond her balcony, at the forest that stretches out and out, at the mountains, tall and snow peaked so far away. She falls asleep to the far off song of the birds.

She falls asleep imagining Henry off living a life without worries, a life of freedom and boundless choice. He’ll have what she never did. He’s free. Emma will make Henry happy, and it is enough, the happiness of her only living child, it is enough.

_______________________________________________________

In the morning she wakes to the weight of a tiny body settling against her side. She's in her bed and she can’t remember how she got there. She must have woken and walked there in the night. She wraps her arm around the boy. "Roland, do you know what knocking is?" she asks with only a hint of disapproval.

He smiles up at her with dimples deep in his cheeks. "You were sleeping, I didn't wanna wake you up," he tells her.

"How did you know I was sleeping?” she asks. Her eyes shut of their own accord and she burrows deeper into the bedding, squeezing the boy before relaxing her grip to the sound of his giggles.

"I could see you through the door," he tells her and he squeezes her as tightly as he can before releasing in an imitation of what she just did to him. "It's breakfast," he tells her and hops up to his feet on the bed covers with his hands on his waist as he looks down at her. "You're hungry, come on."

"How do you know I'm hungry?" She sits up, pulls him down to her lap, and scuttles them both to the edge of the bed.

"Hungry is blue around your tummy, and you're all blue on your tummy, so you're hungry," he tells her and she's astounded he's so free with his magic in her presence. He's been hiding it his whole life.

"Roland," she says and reaches out to him when he jumps down from the edge of the bed. He turns to her with a smile on his face and trusting eyes and she lets her hand drop. She won't spill his secret. He'll tell his father when he's ready. "I am hungry," she finally agrees and allows him to grab her hands.

When they enter the dining chamber Robin has saved them seats next to him and once again the father and son have her sit between them. She can feel the heat of Robin right next to her, their arms touching every now and then. Robin’s men look at her and when she nods they nod in return and relief unclenches the tendrils of unease in her belly and she listens with half an ear as Roland tells her of his plans for the day, which seem to include learning to read, learning to joust, and saving the kingdom, not necessarily in that order and she smiles at him.

______________________________________________________

"Regina," Granny greets. She doesn't sound surprised, like she knew she'd come. The old woman kicks a chair in invitation while looking from above her glasses, her hands steadily peeling the potato in her grasp.

Regina sits and grabs a knife and a potato and sets to work. She doesn't look at Granny and Granny finally looks away. Granny starts talking, talking and talking, about any old thing that enters her mind.

It's a while later that Regina speaks. “I didn't want to be married,” she says. She shrugs a shoulder as she finishes skinning a potato and she places it on the pile with the rest. “At least, not to him.”

Granny makes steady work of her own potato, but Regina knows she's listening intently.

“I had a,” Regina hesitates. What had Daniel been? Her true love. Her dearest friend. A sweet boy. “I had a suiter my own age. We tried to run away together. We were caught.”

Regina lapses into silence as she thinks back to the worst period of her life. Losing Daniel had left her hollow. It had left her broken. But she'd already been broken.

Granny reaches out slowly and lays her hand over Regina’s. “I'm sorry,” the old woman says.

Regina grabs another potato and they spend another hour peeling in silence.

_____________________________________________________

Dinner finds Roland separated from her. Robin sits as the middle of their trio and it upsets the order Regina had imagined she'd gained. Her side feels empty without Roland there. She finds herself looking around Robin all the time at the little boy and he seems just as determined to speak to her in return, but Robin chomps down on his steak and looks skyward like he doesn't notice and Regina wonders if this is some sort of test and that has her scowling.

She huffs and turns to her own plate, poking listlessly, completely uninterested in the food.

Beside her on the bench, where Roland should be is a young man. One of Robin’s men. He'd introduced himself as Arthur and had smiled at her after a look to Robin. He's a chatty boy, loud and boisterous and he seems to be the center of attention, which means Regina next to him is being studied and looked at more than she's comfortable with. She starts squirming in her seat and thinking perhaps she should leave.

Regina lifts up her drink and decides once it's empty she will leave. She's just tipped the glass and taken a mouthful of wine when Arthur makes a lewd joke involving a dwarf, mommy issues, and a fairies wand. Regina’s mouthful of wine nearly snorts out her nose all across the table as a laugh tries to escape. She slaps a hand over her mouth and chokes the liquid back down, coughing and spluttery as she tries to swallow her laughter. She looks with wide eyes over her hand as faces turn up and down the table to look at her. They are smiling at her. She's blushing as dread wells up in her gut. Arthur's grin turns absolutely gleeful as he turns to fully face her.

His dark eyes practically twinkle. "The stoic façade slips! But hear this one, a young handmaiden and-" Arthur crows out the next vulgar, but achingly hilarious tale.

For the rest of the meal Arthur makes it his mission to tell her every lewd and inappropriate joke he's ever heard, and his smile gets wider the hotter Regina's blush grows. For a time she attempts to ignore him, but every other joke has her snorting and choking around her food and her drink. Her glares do nothing to deter him.

"Arthur," Robin warns, only once, but he's smiling just as much as Arthur and when Regina glares at him he laughs.

At one point Robin's hand rises and settles on the small of her back and it's warm and his fingers flex and Regina leans back into his touch and leans against his side.

_________________________________________________

In the middle of the night she shoots awake, eyes wide, her magic prodding at her urgently. She flings herself from the bed, racing to the balcony with her head twitching like a dogs trying to track a sound. Her magic stretches thin as she searches for the thing that is wrong, the thing that woke her. 

Her chambers are in the third tallest tower, and so it is easy for her to spot the five flying monkeys headed fast over the forest. Within only seconds they are already dive bombing a courtyard alive with fire light and the tiny forms of people milling around. The monkeys make no noise. Regina can see their pointed dirty teeth even from so far away. The animals look gleeful as they near their kills and it comes without thought, a shield, protection, the most powerful protection this castle has to offer.

Her hands fly up and a whoosh of air, bright and blinding, crashes to the floor from her body and it's like lace racing through the stone. The farther it gets from her body the dimmer the light grows, but the power extends in a matter of seconds to all corners of the castle and still high up in the air the monkeys fly face first into what is as good as solid stone. Two crash into it and die instantly with broken necks, but the last three beasts beat their powerful wings and manage to pull up from their dive. Still they are silent as one lands on the shield and runs his claws over it. It turns to the other two and shakes his grotesque head.

Regina falls to her knees, then forward onto her palms. The monkeys leave the dead, and fly off back into the night as Regina groans and fights nausea.

Activating the shield took more out of her then she'd expected. For the second night in a row she finds herself laying on the floor of the balcony and letting sleep overtake her.

Her eyes blink closed with her cheek pressed against the cold stone and she's dead to the world, doesn't even vaguely stir until sunlight hits her face hours and hours later. The bodies of the two monkeys remain resting there against the glimmering shield.

________________________________________________________________________

"You're upset with me?" Regina says incredulously, speaking slowly as she tries to understand. She feels like the only sane person in the whole room. "You're upset with me for stopping the attack on the castle?"

The confusion she feels, along with a stinging sense of betrayal, must be showing on her face, but this response to the shield has blindsided her completely. Gratitude is what her heart of hearts had thought she'd receive. Not this. 

She eyes everyone around the council chamber, Granny is at least looking at her like she's done something right, and she had done, that shield had felled two monkeys and saved the people in the courtyard who hadn't even known to be afraid.

"Not upset, Regina," David says, but he sounds peeved even as he saying it and he's glaring with his hands flat on the tabletop as he leans forward. “We just don't understand why you didn't get help instead."

"It was the middle of the night," she repeats, because that had been the first thing she'd said nearly an hour ago. It had been the middle of the night and the monkeys were diving. “There was no time for debate!”

There's tension in the room that she doesn't understand. She had saved people and no one has-

Regina takes a breath and lets it out. They haven't even thanked her.

"We need you to take the spell off," Snow says.

"What?" Regina splutters. “You want me to dismantle the shield?"

"Yes," David answers and straightens. He sounds like he thinks everything is settled, but Regina raises her hand to stall him. He frowns at her.

"You want me to lower the shield that I erected to keep out the witch's flying beasts?" she asks again.

Snow nods.

"Are you absolutely insane?" Regina asks.

The wish to have Robin beside her is sudden and strange. He would see reason. His steady stance beside her would make the world make sense again, she's sure of it.

"We don't think you using magic is such a good idea," Snow says and she looks just like all the mothers on all the basic cable intervention shows Regina would never admit to watching in the middle of the night with popcorn and a tall glass of wine.

Regina snorts. "What?" she says, because she'd used plenty of magic to save Henry from Pan and had used a hefty amount to send Henry and Emma off safely out into North America with new memories, and Snow had nothing to say those times, not a god damned word.

Snow gestures around and the dwarfs are there and Granny and Marco and a bunch of other stupid little people and they're all nodding their heads. "We've come to a decision, Regina. You'll need to stop using your magic. It's led you down a dark path before, and none of us want that for you again."

No. But the word doesn't leave her lips as her brow lowers in a glare; these people had spoken of her future, of her life, and made a decision without even having a semblance of understanding for magic. They'd decided her fate. A jury and she thought she wasn't meant to be judged, how foolish of her. "Magic doesn't work that way, stupid girl," Regina hisses.

Snow's eyes widen as the memory comes to them both at the same moment. Regina has not called Snow stupid girl since Snow was thirteen and had spilled burning hot tea on Regina's hand. Snow had run to her father in tears and told him what Regina had said and it was the only time Leopold had raised a hand to Regina in front of his daughter and the little bitch had gasped, but told her she shouldn't have called her stupid.

"Hey," David calls out indignantly, but Regina talks over him.

"I was born with magic, it isn't something I can stop," Regina snarls.

Snow smiles at her, a hopeful and excited expression. "We spoke to Blue," she says, looking so fucking earnest, "she says she can help us. She knows a way to block your magic permanently."

Air comes whooshing out of Regina in a heavy gasp, her feelings of betrayal and anger swirling with something resembling panic. She should have seen this coming, she thinks. 

First they take her magic, then comes the cage and then it's her tied to a stake and dead with ten arrows shot through her.

"No," she finally gets out as she shakes her head in jerking movements, and she shudders, her panic carrying her somewhere, where-

She won't be powerless. She can't do it-

She's remembering the leather cuff that had drained her the last time she'd been powerless. Two days tortured and powerless and refusing to cry, refusing to scream, but she had, she had screamed near the end. The electric shocks that ran through her from head to toe and Greg's taunting face, the boy Owen in some of his features, _and it smells like the docks and the sound of the ocean is rushing through her ears now and pain is racing up her body like a living thing and that is what happens without magic, pain-_

She takes a step back from the table, and is both in the room and not at the same time. She's losing touch with where she is, even as she tries to calm herself. This display of weakness is gnawing at her, but she can't stop. 

Greg's voice is in her ears as Granny walks towards her. Regina holds up a splayed palm and the women stops. “Don't touch me,” Regina says.

Granny doesn't take another step but Snow surges forward with concern on her face and reaches out to touch Regina’s wrist.

Regina throws herself away violently, _she can't breath, Greg flips the switch and her whole body is pain, her whole world is pain and she doesn't want to scream but she screams and the heavy weight of the leather cuff is on her wrist and he'd told her she was a monster and he was right and he flipped the switch again and she arches off the gurney and it smells of burnt hair and-_

_-pain and fear-_

_-strapped to the gurney, helpless and vulnerable, her neck laid bare-_

_-two days-_

_-the smell of the sea, the smell of Greg's aftershave as he'd leant over her and sneered in her face and called her monster, monster monster, you're a monster-_

_-she can't fucking breathe-_

_-she can't stop it, she can't stop his hands, she can't do anything but scream-_

Arms wrap around her, strong and sure and strength flows and it's Robin, she knows it's him before she even thinks to fight. It's Robin, and he's shooshing her with his mouth against her ear. Regina draws in a ragged breath, like she hasn't breathed in ages, her lungs ache. Her fingers dig into his rough hewn shirt and it feels like she can't stand. A pounding headache is ringing her in ears.

"It's alright," he tells her. He sounds scared, and she's scared too. Robin's warmth and solid body chases some it away. 

She'd deserved it, she'd deserved every moment of that torture, but she shudders and gasps as Robin's hand pulls on a knot in her hair as he runs his fingers through it. He cups the back of her head and cradles it against his chest.

She stands in his embrace, soaking up his magic, trying to breath, strengthening herself against him, it takes long minutes, she tries to speak, but it's babble, and Robin shooshes her gently again, turning them so she is shielded by his body and by the wall until she's calmed. It takes longer then she'd care for. Was that a panic attack? She has no idea.

When she opens her eyes, her head still tucked against Robin's chest, the beating of his heart a steady sound against her ear, she sees the council room is empty save for Snow and Granny. She has no recollection of when everyone else must have left. Regina's legs sag for a moment, everyone had seen her weak. Robin tightens his embrace and he's been keeping up a constant stream of soothing sounding nonsense words since she last tried to speak. Regina unclenches the fabric of his shirt, her fingers ache.

"Regina," Snow says with wide and frightened eyes, but she does not move closer. “I didn't know you'd react like that.”

Regina swallows and leaves Robin's embrace. She straightens her spine. "I'll die before you take my magic," Regina tells Snow with her voice shaking, but her chin held high.

"We just wanted to help you, Regi-"

"Help me?" Regina asks and it comes out strangled.

"Yes, of course," Snow says. A smile flickers uncertainly on her face.

"Help me, by tearing away a chunk of my soul?" Regina spits. That's what magic is to a baby born with it, a part of you always and she'd felt like something was missing from her every day in Storybrooke, a hollow place right beside the hole in her heart. Magic had come back when Emma broke the curse and magic had missed Regina too. It dug in its claws and it would kill her to live without it now, it would make sure it would kill her.

Snow is shaking her head. "No, no, Regina, you could be happy-"

"You don't understand," Regina snaps and throws her hands up as Snow steps closer.

"Make me understand, please, I'll listen," she pleads, but Regina was done teaching Snow the moment Leopold stopped breathing. It will never again be her duty to play mother to the brat.

Regina shakes her head. Her mouth is screwing up and she feels her eyes burning. There's wetness on her cheeks that she will not admit to as she turns to walk out the room with Robin following after her. He reaches for her as they walk, on her shoulder, her arm, even a fleeting touch at the base of her neck. His touch is with her in some way all the way to her chambers. 

She'd woken with the dawn maybe two hours ago and she already wants the day to be done. She gathers her skirts in one hand and climbs onto the bed. She tugs on Robin's hand and he's immovable for a second, but she pulls again without looking at him, and he climbs up too.

He lays on his back with his arms wrapped around her, his fingers are playing in her hair. She sighs and digs her cheek into his falling and rising chest. "I knew you needed me," he says. She can't see his face, but he sounds frightened and unsure even as he runs a calming hand up and down her spine. "How did I know?" he asks.

She thinks it probably has a lot to do with the magic he doesn't even know he has, the magic the same color as hers, but that's a conversation she can't have now, and so she does not answer, and he does not ask again. They lay in the bed together and she tells herself it doesn't mean anything, but she knows that's a lie, everything with Robin means something. 

Regina breathes him in and tries to block the world. He smells of green growing things, wet fertile earth, leather and woodsmoke, the smells of him lull her.

Being in his arms has her feeling the most safe she’s felt in years.

______________________________________________

Roland soaks in the attention she showers on him at dinner. She's sitting with the Merry Men again, between Robin and Roland, she's cocooned herself between them. She pats his hair, hugs his shoulders, and the boy smiles away and is pleased and thank goodness, because if he'd pulled away Regina fears she wouldn't react at all well and maybe he can see how much she needs him, his eyes flicker around her, at only what he can see.

She can feel Robin next to her, practically vibrating and perhaps he wants to touch her as she is touching Roland but he's holding himself back, and she's glad because she'd needed his touch and warmth and comfort laying with him for hours on her bed, but would not appreciate it now, and that he knows that… she's glad he knows it.

Arthur leans across the table to ask her if she's alright. She looks at him blankly before she nods. He turns away with a frown and Regina wonders how long it took for word of her fit, her weakness, to spread to every corner of the castle.

"Sooooo," a drunken slur from behind them.

Regina closes her eyes and her shoulders tense. She's so tired. She doesn't want whatever this is. The voice came from right behind her and she just wants to eat in peace, with Roland and Robin and she knows whatever this is, is trouble and she doesn't want it. She doesn't want it. She's so tired of fighting.

"-had to come see for myself," the voice continues.

Robin has turned to face the newcomer and his face is twisted and angry. Arthur and John across the table look at each other and stand up. Roland drops his fork down and grabs Regina's hand. It's a protective hold, but he doesn't turn to look and neither does Regina. Do they share the silly thought that if they don't turn to see maybe the trouble will go away?

"The good man," the drunk spits, "Robin Hood, courting the Evil Queen.” 

He laughs derisively and Regina's eyes widen as she stares at her half eaten plate of food. Courting, echoes in her head, but they aren't….not courting, and that's…it's not-

"Back. Off." Robin bites out. He slams his hands on the table as he twists in his seat and stands. He swings his legs over the bench and Regina does turn then, to keep him in her sight.

The other man is as tall as Robin, but thicker. He’s corded with muscle and he looks mean and he's a mess, smells of spirits and vomit. Regina has seen him before and had thought he was one of the Robin's crew.

"Tuck says he doesn't want me anymore," the drunk says. He giggles like he's mad and he stumbles. "Robin's a good man, and you're not.” He's mocking Tuck with a fairly accurate impression. "But here you all are sharing meat and mead with the Evil Queen!” he screams.

The soft sound of silverware and conversation has ceased in the hall as everyone stares.

John and Arthur are inching forward from around the table with their hands fisted. Robin has his hands curled into fists as well.

The drunk looks at her, leers at her, and her skin crawls in response. 

"You've been tricked by a pretty face," he tells Robin. "She's a monster underneath.” He moves far quicker than she'd expected. He snaps forward and grabs a handful of her hair, dragging her from her seat by the scalp. Roland scrabbles and screams after at her.

Regina could throw him away with magic and stick him to the wall, but she hesitates and thinks of the people clamoring to tear her magic away. Even if they see its defense with their own eyes they will still use it against her and she can't be watching all the time and one night they'll get her and trap her and rip her soul apart and Snow will say it was for the best.

Before she's really made her choice the cold bite of a dagger is at her throat and it's too late to throw him away, but she could still disappear in a cloud of smoke. She raises her hands and tugs on the man's wrist, trying to get some maneuvering room, some space, but his arm is like an iron band, unmovable. He digs the dagger in and she stops at the pain, at the trickle of blood that travels down her neck.

"I'll show you what's inside," the drunk screams with his hand still tearing her hair and stretching her neck back. Regina's eyes widen as she’s trying to think. Blood runs down her neck.

"Stop it! Stop!" Robin has pleading hands raised and he's got eyes only for her bloody neck and the dagger and Regina feels badly that he is so frightened, and Roland is weeping and she wishes he wouldn't.

"A good man!" the drunk laughs, his stinking breath blowing past her ear, fluttering her hair, his breath stinks of vomit. The dagger digs even deeper, she hisses out a breath, and he wrenches her neck farther. "Balls deep in a fucking monster and they all still say you're a good man!"

She senses it a second before he does it, he digs down, slits her throat straight to the bone and she'll be dead in seconds and blood is everywhere and it's loud and it's all a blur and she’s on her knees and then she's on her back on the floor and her hands come up to her neck but she's already too far gone to heal herself and this is death, she's dying and it's all slippery blood and sound is muffled and she's blinking and can't breathe and everything is heavy and her hands fall away and she's dying she's she’s 

gone 

__________________________________________________________________

"Will Regina be eating with us all the time?" Roland asks as he grabs his father's hand and swings it. He doesn't notice the look Little John wears as he asks, but Robin does.

"I don't know, my boy," Robin answers as he kneels down. He straightens the boy's shoulders affectionately until he is standing straight and looking him in the eye. Robin smiles. "Why don't you go ask her to join us for breakfast, hm?"

Roland's face splits into a massive smile, before he nods and goes sprinting off with his little arms pumping.

Robin watches him go with a soft smile in place. The child nearly trips twice in his rush and then he's turned the corner without one look back and Robin rises. He crosses his arms and looks at Little John. "Something's on your mind, I'll have it, come on." Little John crosses his own arms but he looks sad and flustered and Robin backs down a little. Little John is his closest friend, his oldest friend. "What is it?" Robin entreats again.

"They say she's enchanted you," John says. He doesn't look away and can plainly see the way Robin's jaw tenses and his eyes tighten.

"They?" Robin echoes, and forces his voice calm.

John shakes his head. "You've not looked at a woman since Marian. Please, Robin, why the Evil Queen? Of all the woman in-"

"Don't call her that," Robin says.

John grabs his shoulder and draws him in closer. "Don't forget who she is, Robin." 

And then he's gone, walking away and Robin lets him go as his words bounce through his head. Still bouncing even ten minutes later when Roland drags Regina to the breakfast table. Boy and woman are both wearing smiles as she lifts Roland under the arms to the bench seat and the boy giggles as her long hair falls in a curtain before his face for just a moment.

When her smile turns to him, Robin answers it with one of his own and this is who she is, he thinks, but whispering in the back of Robin's head, whispering in John's voice, is the name Evil Queen.

She loads Roland's plate first, eggs and a slab of ham that she cuts into tiny pieces, toast, and when she loads her own she's given herself less than the boy and Robin eyes her plate with concern but it's not his place to say anything, not yet, and if she doesn't eat enough at dinner he's not sure what he'll do, but it gnaws on him.

"I like yellow," Roland says as he pokes at his eggs. Robin hadn't been paying much mind to the boy's words, but that cuts through his thoughts. It makes him smile.

"Is it your favorite?" Regina asks. She sounds different with Roland than with anyone else, as if everything the little boy says is noteworthy and valued and she listens to him like an equal and Roland revels in it, Robin can't imagine any child not.

Roland finishes his bite and nods. "What's your favorite, Regina?"

She tilts her head and seems to give it a great amount of thought. "I like blue," she finally answers.

"That's a good color," Roland agrees with a worldly nod.

Robin's smile only grows.

_______________________________________________

"Robin!" 

It's David, jogging up with a smile and Robin nods in return as the other man catches him.

"Good morning," Robin greets.

"Good morning, Robin," the other man says, but it's distracted and the other man is looking around like he expects something to come from the shadows, "look, can I speak to you for a moment?" He's already got a hand on Robin's arm, dragging him to an empty corner of the already rather sparsely occupied courtyard.

"What is it?" Robin asks, but is not concerned.

David licks his lips, he's got the bullheaded expression that Robin has seen on countless men right before they've done something stupid. "You should be careful with Regina," the man finally says.

Robin takes a step back, his mouth twists up at the unwanted advice, that John had said something similar just that morning means nothing here, because John is his oldest friend, and David is a Royal Robin doesn't even know.

"I think what I do or don't do is entirely my own decision, thank you, David," Robin says coldly. Robin is already turning away with a hard grim frown but David shoots a hand out.

"No," he says, "no," and Robin lets him turn him, "that's not what I meant," David says. Robin nods for him to go on, his eyes still narrowed.

David takes a breath. "She's lost a lot," he finally says and Robin nods again, because even a blind man could see the pain Regina suffers, the ache and loneliness of loss that drapes about her frame. "She likes you," David says with a gesture at him, and the tips of Robin's lips go up, "and Snow and I, we don't want to see her hurt."

"I would never hurt her," Robin says and it's the truth. He looks at David and wonders why David cares, the man who feels it alright to grab and shake Regina when she's ill. This protective side is almost completely at odds with the attitude he's seen previously and it's strange indeed. Snow and David's relationship with Regina is twists and turns that Robin can't follow.

"Of course," David says and he looks away and shifts on the balls of his feet. "It's only, that if you're planning on…you see, I know she's a beautiful woman, and if that's all that you care for, you shouldn't-"

"David," Robin interrupts sharply, his ire leaping up tenfold. He’s outraged that David would think so low of him, would imagine his care only lust. It disgusts Robin.

David swallows and looks at him.

"What I plan on doing with Regina isn't any of your business, but I'll say again, I would never hurt her."

Robin means for that to be the end of the conversation, and, thankfully, David takes the hint.

"Of course," David says again and he turns and walks away and Robin frowns after him.

____________________________________________________

Arthur makes her blush and her cheeks reddened is endlessly endearing. It's beautiful. Her cheeks red and burning, her hand comes up to block view of her face and she's guffawing like she's never heard a ribald joke before and is totally unprepared for this deluge that Arthur is treating her too.

She'd slid against Robin on the bench and hadn't moved away. Her whole body shakes with her choked laughter and Robin wants to wrap an arm around her, feel the softness of her, he can smell her hair, some vanilla smell that spreads warmth through him.

He thinks perhaps the High Born lady turned Queen really hasn't heard this tavern talk before, and it makes him smile. His men up and down the table are smiling too, chuckling and the wariness begins to dim and they squint and they see just a laughing woman. This is who she is Robin thinks, she is a woman who has to look up even when sitting to look Arthur in the eye, who tucks her hair behind her ears and almost snorts wine through her nose and she is just like anyone else, not some monster, cold and unfeeling.

Robin places his hand on her back and she is solid and real and her chest is vibrating with her laughter and she turns to glare at him with her blushing face and he laughs. When she leans back into his touch his smile grows and Arthur raises his eyebrows at him over her head.

_______________________________________________________________

_She pants, breath hot against his cheek. "Robin," she chokes out._

_God, what just her voice does to him._

_Her body is covered in slick sweat and he's between her legs and her thighs are soft and her whole body is soft and cushioned and she's opened for him and panting and she squirms under him and he places open mouth kisses on her neck and sucks and bites and she's wet for him. So wet._

_"Robin," she breathes again as her hands claw against his back, savages him and he hisses and thrusts his tongue in her mouth and grabs her hand and pulls it between them and she grins against his lips and wraps her hand around his length and he grunts._

_When she guides him in she's hot and wet and so fucking tight and he groans and it takes everything to hold himself back but he does and he slides in slow as her knees draw up on either side of him and she's keening with those beautiful lips parted. He has a primal urge to make her scream his name, but the next instant he feels deep and unimaginable affection for her as she reaches up to cradle his jaw. He wants to fuck her so badly but he wants to love her too. He ducks down grabs that open mouth for a messy kiss, she cups his jaw with her hand and he can feel the whimper that leaves her as he's in then out, skin slapping against skin._

_"Alright?" he asks. She nods and lets out a choked gasp as he grabs her hip, adjusting her rhythm until it's perfect, they are perfect, in and out and in and her hands drop to the sheets, and she grasps them in tight fists and her tits bounce as he slams in then out, harder, and faster and the noises she makes drive him mad and-_

_She’s so soft, she’s so fucking tight, she feels like everything he’s ever dreamed of- she feels of things he’d never even imagined- she’s_

Robin wakes up to sunlight in his eyes, a raging erection, and visions of Regina still in his mind. He lays in bed for a moment, breathing deeply and his jaw is tight and he's already so close, he closes his eyes. Under the blanket he grasps himself.

He grunts out something unintelligible even to him, her name maybe, working himself over and it's not the same as the dream because he's aware but he needs relief and he thinks of her perfect mouth, her lips, and her hair, and the body he’s never seen and he's stays quiet but his neck is straining, his mouth open, his head thrown back as he thrusts up softly into his own hands as he works himself up and down and when he finally comes with a grunt it's to the vision of her between his legs on the bed, looking up at him with dark eyes and his dick in her mouth.

__________________________________________________

On the way to breakfast, with John beside him, Robin rubs a hand over his chest. There's a pulling in there, not quite painful but noticeable and he's completely not listening to whatever John is saying.

"Robin."

John is glaring at him when he turns to look. "I'm sorry, John," he apologizes but he keeps rubbing the spot over his heart and now a grimace makes its way to his features.

"Are you alright?" John takes a step forward with concerned eyes.

"Yes," Robin says but he's not, he has never felt this before, and-

Panic blooms in Robin, but it's not his own and instantly he knows it is Regina.

It runs over him like a river, immersing him, coating him-

her-

pain runs through her body, like fire under skin and she's screaming in her head but refuses to open her mouth and he can hear an echo of her in his head and he stumbles away from John and ignores his worried calls and he needs Regina and she's crying and screaming and arching her back painfully as every muscle in her body cramps and she's slamming her eyes closed but a man's face is there on her closed eyelids, sneering and cruel and whispers in her ear, monster monster, he says, and he smells her hair and she flinches away and he calls her evil and believes him, she believes him and she thinks she deserves it and-

Robin needs her, he needs her, to see she's alright, but she isn't alright, he doesn't know where he's going, he's just going to her-

He’s running through the castle. He knows only that he needs to find her and in this moment he doesn’t examine how it is that he knows exactly where she is.

Robin bursts into the council chamber. He's panting and wild eyed as he rushes to her side. She's got her back to the wall and she's panting too and her eyes are closed and she’s hunched over and great sobbing breaths leave her and she's not taking nearly enough in and Robin glares at everyone, their gawking faces and they've just stood and watched her crumble. "Get out!" he seethes, and gestures with one angry swipe of his arm.

The assorted people take one look at his snarling face and hastily heed him, making towards the door with shuffling feet, except for Granny and Snow, but Robin has already moved to Regina. He hauls her up and hugs her against him, he holds her tightly and her body is pliant and soft against him but her whole body convulses as she takes a ragged breath.

"It's alright," he says to her but it's not and Robin has fright still running through his body and it's her he's frightened for and how he knew she needed him and that scares him too, because he'd known and ran to her and knew what pained her and she thinks she deserved it, the cruel man with the sneer had called her evil and touched her and she'd agreed and she thinks she deserved it, and that frightens Robin most of all.

She's shuddering against him and he runs a hand up and down her spine, pressing down to help her escape her memories and he cradles her head to him, her dark hair soft between his fingers and he presses a kiss to the side of her head and whispers into her ear. "Shhhh, it's alright," he says when she tries and fails to speak.

Robin closes his eyes and tucks his chin on top of her head and hugs her and holds her and whispers to her and he'd known a man once, a farmer turned soldier turned farmer, who'd had fits and he screamed and raged and been trapped in his mind, stuck in his worst memories, and the only thing that got him out was his wife's voice, and so he soothes Regina the same way he had seen the soldier’s wife soothe her husband. "You're safe," he tells her and in his arms she always will be he promises himself and he whispers to her and looks over her head to Granny and Snow and Snow looks almost close to tears.

It takes Regina a worryingly long time to come back to him. But then she does and he could cry with relief.

Regina turns in his embrace, to face Snow. "I'll die before you take my magic," she says and her voice is raw and she's still catching her breath and Robin's hand stop on her biceps.

Snow's hands fly up, begging Regina to see. "We just wanted to help you, Regi-"

Regina hunches forward, her back bent and Robin stretches his arms to keep her in his grasp. "Help me?" Regina repeats in disbelief, it’s a broke sound.

"Yes, of course," Snow says and she's got such earnest eyes but Regina is still shaking under his fingers and if this is what Snow's help looks like, he'd rather she not offer.

"Help me, by tearing away a chunk of my soul," Regina asks and it's almost a wail. 

Snow flinches back and tears are in her eyes as she shakes her head wildly. "No, no, Regina you could be happy-"

"You don't understand," Regina spits and throws up her hands, she turns half back to Robin.

Snow finally takes that step, just one and she's got begging eyes but she wants so much. Regina cringes back from her. "Make me understand, please, I'll listen," she says.  
Regina walks away, and Robin goes along.

She stomps all the way to her chambers, a path Robin knows well and he follows her through the doors, all the way to the bed and she's got her hand in his, wrapped around his fingers and she tugs at him as she climbs up on her knees onto the bed and she's got her skirts gathered up and her legs are smooth and bare and he stands rigid and doesn't think this is wise at all but she tugs at him again and he can see her face, and she's hurt and wants him with her and he allows himself to be tugged after her.

She lays with her chest against his, her breasts pressed against him as he cradles her against him and breathes her in. She's soft and warm as she tucks her head on his shoulder. He feels the sigh she lets out against his neck.

"I knew you needed me," he questions and squeezes her for just a second. He needs to know if she really has enchanted him, wrapped him up somehow in her and he'd come because she'd called him, but he knows that's all nonsense, because since the moment he'd seen her, fireball in her hand, sneer on her face, he'd been drawn to her, and the fault is only his own.

"How did I know?" he asks.

She does not answer and they lay together on the bed and she's warm and so, so soft and he loses himself in touching her, careful touches and he doesn't kiss her and she hardly moves, but she lets him run his hands over her back, through her hair and she breathes deeply and easily. It feels like something he'd lost has come back to him, but he doesn't know what and he doesn't ask again. He’s glad she hadn't answered because whatever answer she might have, it would be too much.

__________________________________________________________________________

He had held her for hours, and it's opened up a need for her that seems unquenchable. The need to touch, the need to care for and support. Touching her seems like it will be as mindless a gesture as touching Roland is, as if it is right and like it has been that way always. But he stops himself. She'd shied away from his hands when they'd entered the dining hall, and so he stops himself from cradling her the way he'd want to.

She's wrapped around Roland and Robin knows alone in her bed is different than at the dinner table, but god he wants to hold her to him even now. He doesn't know what they are to each other, knows some of his affection is returned, of course, but beyond that he does not know what to call the pair he's suddenly craving to be a part of. He wants to be with her. It's as simple, and completely complex, as that.

Everyone is looking at her, turning their heads and whispering and Regina acts like she does not know, perhaps she does not care, but Robin is seething with his jaw is clamped shut at the horrible show of disrespect in her own castle, they whisper right in front of her like she is a caged animal.

Little John looks at him from across the table and reaches over to unclench his hand from his knife. Arthur asks her if she's alright and there's a beat of silence. Robin turns to look at her and her face is blank. She nods, does not blink and she turns back to Roland. Arthur frowns, brows furrowed in concern as he looks from John to Robin.

Robin has eyes only for Regina. She’s turned away from him and he's got his hand already rising from the table top, fingers so close to her dark hair and he wants to run his fingers through it.

"So had to come see for myself," Tom says and Robin drops his hand back to the table. He inhales a long breath through his nose, jaw clamping shut and teeth grinding. He turns and glares at the drunk swaying behind him. Tom is not something he wants right now, at all, ever, and he doesn't want him near his boy, or near Regina.

"The good man Robin Hood courting the Evil Queen." Tom leans forward, face scrunched in disgust and Robin feels his face burning, rage that had been directionless is now focusing, his blood starts thrumming through his head.

Tuck is down the table and he cringes and shrinks down but says nothing to his drunken brother and Robin's anger boils even more.

"Back. Off." Robin snaps and stands so fast the bench he'd been sitting on knocks back and forth. Regina wobbles as she turns to look at him, her hand flinging out to the crook of his elbow for a second before she draws it back.

"Tuck says he doesn't want me anymore," Tom says and takes a stumbling step, raising one accusatory finger at Robin and hate and rage are in his eyes and Robin returns it all in equal measure. "Robin's a good man, and you're not," Tom giggles. He leans back and bellows for the huge hall to hear, "but here you all are sharing meat and mead with the Evil Queen!"

The hall is quiet. No clatter of silverware or dishes, no conversation, as they all watch the drunk and the drama and the woman they call the Evil Queen seemingly at the cause of it.

Robin's hand curl into fists and he takes a step forward as Tom looks down at Regina. Her dark eyes turn up to look at Tom in return. He leers down at her, eyes dipping down to her cleavage, stinking breath moving the flutters of hair around her face, but she doesn't back down, her glare hot. Roland is trying to look brave next to her, but has a handful of her sleeve and looks very close to crying. 

"You've been tricked by a pretty face," Tom says and he looks back at Robin and madness is in those eyes and mad men are no men at all and Robin takes another step. Fear is starting to move in on him suddenly, time seems to slow, how strange, and he remembers Tom slaughtering a guard and Tuck had never told Robin but Arthur had whispered of it with haunted eyes and had never spoken to Tom again.

"She's a monster underneath," Tom says.

Robin looks into Tom’s eyes and for a moment they are glassy and empty, like a doll come alive with no soul.

In a blink Tom has lurched forward and grabbed a handful of her beautiful dark hair, her soft wonderful hair in his fist as he's dragging her over the bench by it and she yelps, her hands raised over her head and on Tom's. Her face twists in a pain filled grimace as she stumbles to try to keep pace as Tom walks them both backwards. 

“Let her go!” Robin thunders. Robin pulls the dagger from his waist and steps after, shock and that boiling anger make him snarl. Time seems still to move so slowly, only to speed abnormally fast when Tom has a dagger to her throat.

Robin stops his steps with wide eyes and there's already blood on her neck, on the dagger and Regina stops struggling after Tom gives her a violent shake and blood is a steady stream out of a shallow wound on her neck.

"I'll show you what's inside!" Tom yells. The hollow gaze is gone now, he's got panic in his eyes, like he didn't plan on this and he doesn't see a way out and that's no good because men with no way out have nothing left to lose and Robin knows, he knows it, he know Tom is going to kill Regina, can see it already, the blood, her sightless eyes. No. Robin, thinking of a life spent with her only minutes ago, sees her dead in moments and the life he didn't want to imagine flicks before his eyes, loving her, knowing her better than he knows himself, supporting her, marrying her and bedding her and being there for her always, it's on the brink of a precipice. Her life in danger.

But she doesn't look frightened.

"Stop it! Stop!" Robin begs. He has never begged for anything, but he's begging now with his hands up and pleading, his dagger held loosely in his grip. Roland is being held back on the bench and it takes two Merry Men to restrain him and he's screaming and sobbing.

"A good man!" Tom bellows and Robin sees David race into the chamber over Tom’s shoulder, his sword unsheathed and Snow enters right after. "Balls deep in a fucking monster and they all still say you're a good man!"

He slits her throat.

Slits her throat and its blood all across her front in seconds, gushing like a horrid waterfall, drenching her dress, her neck, her breasts, blood spreading across fabric all the way down to her thighs in mere seconds. Tom throws her down, away from him and looks as if he's going to flee. He doesn't get far. Robin screams, a guttural cry that comes right from the center of him and it's like something's shifted in the world and everything is a shade darker and he sees red, he sees red, he knocks John out of the way and he stabs Tom, he sees red and he stabs Tom in the gut with his dagger and he sees red. Robin twists the blade.

"Papa!"

Tom, hung on the blade, is slow to slide down to the floor, the other man grasps at Robin's elbows, looking up at him as he sinks slowly to the floor, he's got his mouth open, he's choking out words. But Robin can't hear over the thrumming in his ears, the world is red and he can hear nothing, he stares into Tom's eyes until he pulls the blade out and steps away. Tom sprawls across the floor. Dead. Robin is covered in blood and it's still all red.

"PAPA!"

Robin turns and looks down at Regina. She's in a huge puddle of blood, so much blood, and she's not moving. Her lips colorless and her eyes are open and sightless and she stares and stares up at the ceiling and her eyes are empty. Her graceful fingers are curled in that puddle of blood and her neck is open, bone and blood and muscle and it's the most terrible thing Robin has ever seen. He stumbles and falls to his knees in the puddle of blood, his dagger clatters to the ground from numb fingers.

He looks up at Roland, the boy is fighting tooth and nail against restraining hands, and he looks mad, spitting and screaming. Robin thinks he tells them to let him go, because they do let him go, and the boy falls and scampers to Regina and he skids in her blood, so much blood. His little hands are on that gaping wound on her neck and he's whispering. Robin can't hear him.

Robin reaches for him, his body heavy in the worst way, like it doesn't want to live. "Roland," he says, and he's sobbing, and he's covered in blood and he reaches for his boy. "Roland." One hand latches onto the boy's shoulder and at the touch Robin is bowled over by a force he can't see.

Roland keeps on his whispering, doesn't look at his father as Robin clamors back onto his knees. “Roland!” Robin calls and watches with his mouth open in wonder and fear as Roland's hands glow, blinding blue lilac, his little face is scrunched in focus and he's whispering, whispering and Regina's curled fingers twitch, the gaping maw of neck disappears behind a crisscross haze that spreads out from Roland's tiny hands and the boy is shaking and Robin wants to hold him, but all he can do is stare and stare, dumbfounded and feeling as if the world has stopped being real.

Regina's sightless eyes blink, once, eyes still empty of life in their sockets. Her mouth moves, her jaw shifting, her teeth are stained red under red stained lips. Her whole arm twitches up and falls back with a splat in the puddle of blood. Roland puts his forehead against hers and he's gasping and whispering still.

"Roland," Robin says desperately and he comes closer and he doesn't touch but he gets close enough to hear.

"Don't leave," the boy cries. "Regina, don't leave, you can't go, please, don't, please," over and over and Roland is shaking and the power under his hands is brighter than the sun and Robin has to squint and raise a hand to protect his eyes and Roland keeps whispering to her.

Her whole body spasms and it doesn't look natural, but she draws in a huge screaming breath and the blinding light winks out.

Roland slumps down on top of Regina. Regina still lays in her puddle of blood and her eyes are closed now. Robin crawls towards them. He checks on Roland first, turns the boy over and he's breathing and his pulse is strong. Robin lays him down gently half in his lap, and reaches for Regina, her neck is still covered in that crisscross haze, so he feels for her pulse at her wrist. He holds his breath until he feels it, the absurdly slow thud thud of her pumping blood, even though most of it is on the floor. Robin sobs out a broken breath and falls atop her, hand under her head and knotted in her blood soaked hair and he draws her up and holds her, with Roland between them.

Hands are on his shoulders, shaking him. Roland is drawn away and Robin snarls before he looks and sees it's Arthur that's got a hold of the boy, Arthur, with worried eyes, gazing all about as he cradles Roland in his arms. The noise of the hall comes rushing in Robin's ears, Robin can hear now the crowd and they watch, eyes on Roland and Regina, and their droning sounds like an angry hive of bees. John is at Robin's other side, picking Regina out of her puddle of blood and cradling her as Arthur does the child. "Come on, Robin," John orders, voice gruff, "now, come on,"

Robin nods and rises. His legs shake, and his hand flexes, but he doesn't stoop to retrieve his dagger as he passes it. He does not look down at Tom as he passes. He keeps his eyes on Regina and follows after her as John carries her. Robin sees Snow with tears in her eyes as she reaches out to touch Regina as John walks by but David stops her with a gentle shake of his head.

Robin follows blindly as Arthur leads them to Robin's rooms, he shares the hall with the rest of the Merry Men, Arthur's room is right next door and John's across the hall. Robin doesn't even question their destination, lost in a haze as he is, until John and Arthur's voices filter through his brain, they can't put Roland or Regina on any of the beds because they are covered in blood, they need a washing, both of them, and Arthur asks if Robin wants to take Roland and wash him but Robin barely hears the question and Arthur tells him he'll take Roland and walks away to wash the boy.

John orders Robin to sit. Robin's legs give way and he collapses on the stone floor, right there in the hall with Regina placed in his arms instantly. John cradles the back of Robin's head in a large hand, a steady hand as he bends down and tells him he will return in moments, that he's off to find the old wolf. And then Robin is alone with Regina in his arms and he's just holding her.

Holding her to him the way he'd wanted to before-

Before-

Before this nightmare. He holds her close, rocking back and forth and holding her body close.

His thoughts are incoherent, but for one. Roland has magic.

He clutches her tighter and she groans, and he almost laughs from relief, but she does not stir beyond that sound, and that blue crisscross haze is bright and casts shadows on her blood covered face. He leans forward and kisses her forehead and pushes stringy hair back and cradles her jaw and stares and stares at her and his laughter turns into a sob halfway to his mouth and he's squeezing her against him and he sobs, great wracking sobs because he had lost her, as he had lost Marian, sobs because Roland had brought her back, sweet Roland, the beautiful baby boy and he'd saved Regina, with magic and it's wonderful, but what price is there for this, magic is never free, nor kind. Robin doesn't know how long he sits there but when he feels a hand on his shoulder he flinches, but it's Granny, with John behind her.

"Get her up," Granny orders, gesturing.

Granny has them carry Regina to the washroom, have them place her gently in the tub and he's loathe to leave her but Granny shoos him out with a stern expression. John has to drag Robin out, and has to drag him down the hall, each footfall away from her is painful, John drags Robin to another washroom.

"She's alive, Robin, she's safe," John tries to soothe as he throws a wash cloth at Robin, but Robin doesn't catch it, and it falls with a wet thump to the ground.

"I killed him," Robin says.

John claps hands on either side of Robin's head and forces Robin to look at him, square in the eye. "You've killed before, and you'll kill again, Robin," he tells him and it's not comforting, but it's the truth. Robin has killed to protect his brothers in arms, and protect Marian, and he'd killed to protect Roland, but those were faceless men who he'd never known. Men who would take lives if their lives had not been taken first.

Tom was not faceless, Tom, with keen hazel eyes and thin lips, a strong jaw and a booming laugh, Tom, who liked his beef burned, had hated the croaking of frogs, Robin knew Tom, did not like him, did not call him friend, yet knew him all the same, and now Tom is dead and Robin had been the one to wield the blade.

But he thinks of Regina in that huge puddle of blood. Tom did that and he deserved what he got.

Robin cleans himself hastily, his hands shake as he wipes away the red. He makes it back to the closed door behind which Regina waits in under five minutes with wet hair and fresh clothes, the old had been ruined beyond any salvage, and he sits with his back against the wall and waits. And he waits and waits for Granny to be finished. Waits to see Regina again.

As Robin watches the door, John watches him with a worried frown under the scruff on his face. Arthur comes carrying Roland not long after, the boy is placed in Robin's arms and he cradles him as he'd cradled Regina and he kisses the boy's wet curls and the boy snuggles closer in his sleep. The boy has bags under his eyes, dark circles and he looks ill, but his pulse is strong. Tension eases in Robin's chest as he holds Roland. The boy has magic, Robin thinks, the boy healed Regina.

Robin closes his eyes and breathes Roland in, and whispers, "thank you" into the boys ear.

When Granny finally opens the door and says she's done, Regina's in one of Little John's shirts, swallowed up by it and she looks tiny and suddenly frail, and Robin never wants to see her this way again.

Arthur carries her to Robin's own chamber, doesn't ask, just does so and he lays her down on the blankets and Robin, following closely behind with Roland in his arms, plops the boy next to her. The child turns instantly and snuggles against her but she is still, far too still, terribly and terrifyingly still. Robin leans forward to feel the breath leaving her nose with his fingers and when that does not satisfy him he lays his hand atop her ribs to be certain the lungs inside are rising and falling.

"They'll be a man at the end of the hall, all night," Arthur tells him and Robin nods.

Arthur leaves and John follows. Granny walks to the bed, she pushes wet hair off of Regina's forehead and she sighs with her palm against Regina's cheek. She lets out a bitter chuckle and looks to Robin. "The girl can't catch a break," she tells him and then she's out the door and he's alone with them both.

He stares at them. He tucks them under the blankets and he sits in the chair beside the bed, and stares and stares until he falls asleep.

_______________________________________________

"Robin?"

Robin blinks, he's got a horrible crink in his neck. "hnng?" he responds and blinks his eyes open.

"Robin," she says again, and her voice is raw and mangled, but it's her, her beautiful voice.

Robin rushes up, racing from the chair to her side and she looks awful, pale with huge dark circles under her eyes and her lips are still colorless but the crisscross haze has dimmed and it's smaller, but if you look closely you can still see the pulpy mess behind that haze. Robin does not look closely. He bends over the bed and cradles her head and he breathes her in and he's kissing her forehead again and again as her hand comes up to curl against his neck, her grasp is weak. He leans back only enough to see her fully, and no farther, he could weep for the beauty of her open eyes, dark eyes, but she's already blinking them closed and she hasn't moved away from her spot in the blankets.

"Regina," he whispers and she smiles up at him, a weak upturn of her lips. She hums in response, her hand falls away from his neck, slides down to rest at her side.

"What happened?" she asks with her eyes still shut.

"Roland healed you," he answers and he's running his thumbs over her cheekbones, moving under her lips, caressing her forehead, and he's in awe of her and of Roland, and so incredibly thankful.

Her eyes open sluggishly. "Roland," she says and turns her head to look at the boy snuggled against her and she frowns. "He saw.” Her hand goes up towards neck, but Robin intercepts it and interlaces their fingers as he turns her face back to him gently, cupping her cheek.

"He healed you with magic," he explains and she nods.

"Powerful," she mumbles. She's already falling back asleep, her eyes slipping shut again, but Robin brings her back with a soft utterance of her name.

"What do you mean?" he questions as unease grows in him.

She tucks her cheek more firmly into Robin's hand. She squeezes Roland closer. "Already gone," she whispers. She licks her lips, takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a sigh. "I was already gone."

Robin, his hand against her soft warm skin, he stares down at her. "He healed you," he says again.

She shakes her head. "He brought me back," she corrects. She turns her whole body and envelops Roland. The boy smiles in his sleep. "He brought back the dead," she says before she’s asleep.


End file.
